


Dance of Thorns

by youreyestheyglow



Series: The Asshat Chronicles [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Fluff, I can officially say that, M/M, Smut, plot too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:28:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youreyestheyglow/pseuds/youreyestheyglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bro shows up to spend time with Dave, but when Dave runs late, he ends up screwing John.<br/>Shit ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Bro. Remember how I said my last class was canceled?" Dave's voice is snappy, annoyed.

"Yeah?"

"I was wrong. My teacher decided we had it, and it's the three hour lab, I won't get out until seven."

"Fuck." You're pulling into the parking lot.

"Sorry."

"It ain't your fault."

"There's a coffee shop-slash-diner, like, two minutes away from the dorm hall." 

"All right. Call me when you get out and I'll come find you, ok? Take you out for dinner or some shit."

"Okay. Sorry."

"It's fine. I'll see ya later."

"All right. Bye, Bro."

"Bye, kid." 

You hang up and park. 

You don't particularly want to go sit in a coffee shop with a bunch of college kids, considering you're around fifteen years older than they are. You don't want to sit in that electrically charged atmosphere full of exhausted and terrified students. Your college experience was long and painful, and you used it solely to make puppets with dicks for noses and the plushiest asses in the world. You decided that that was plenty of terror for you.

But you go, because you also don't feel like sitting in the car for three hours and eleven minutes. 

You get a coffee. You don't bother looking at the long list of drinks. You want a large coffee and you'll add your own sugar.

You sit at a table as you drink, refusing to sip like the students sitting with their friends and refusing to chug like the students sitting with their textbooks and laptops. 

You almost wish you'd grabbed something to eat. This isn't either a coffee shop or a diner, it's a strange and wonderful place where you can get coffee and tiny pies and cookies and soup and, apparently, bacon in the morning, and now you're pissed it isn't morning. 

You hear a squeak, and something smashes into your face and nearly knocks over what's left of your coffee.

You stare down at the ruined key lime pie on your table, and look up at a bright-faced kid whose face is quickly reddening.

He's fighting a grin.

Asshole. 

"Sorry, I'm so sorry -" He's holding a napkin and awkwardly attempting to pat down your face, but there's no way in hell you're getting this stuff off your face.

You wave him away. "This isn't going anywhere without soap and water. I need a bathroom."

He snorts, and you realize he's choking down a chuckle. "The bathroom's there."

You walk the two feet to the bathroom and try to push it open, but it doesn't budge. You push it again. 

The kid sputters as he tries not to laugh. "Um, it might be locked. They might be cleaning it."

You fight the urge to slam your head into the door and smear pie all over it. 

"There's a sink in my room," the kid offers.

"Right, let's go," you say, waving him out in front of you.

He takes the lead and walks in front of you to the dorm. You see his shoulders shaking with silent laughter and smack him gently, pushing his head to the side but mostly just ruffling his hair, which is abnormally soft. 

He snorts and then he's laughing, unable to hold it in anymore, and his laugh is the happiest thing you've heard in a long time, and you're fighting a grin yourself.

He has to pause to regain his breath, tears streaming down his face.

"Asshat," you say.

He glances at you and his eyes flicker over your body and land on your hat. "Coming from the douche wearing the shades and the hat."

"Makes me a better judge of when someone's an asshat."

His room is on the first floor, and you don't run into anyone on the way. There's only one bed in his room. You frown. "Where does your roommate sleep?"

He grins, a strangely devilish grin for someone so happy. "When I applied I took advantage of my asthma and asked for my own room. I don't have a roommate."

You pull your shades off and bend to wash your face in the sink. When you look up, you see the kid's eyes on your ass. You raise your eyebrows. He jumps and flushes and almost looks away, but his eyes catch yours in the mirror and you remember you're not wearing your shades.

You become a statue, waiting. 

He doesn't look away from your bright orange eyes. 

You straighten, slowly. 

His eyes follow yours. 

You turn to face him. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to stare?"

He blinks and goes into panic mode, passing you a towel and talking at top speed, apologizing for the pie repeatedly for lack of anything better to say, but his eyes aren't under his control anymore and you watch them return to you, time and time again, and not just to your eyes, but to your stomach, dick, arms, chest, lips - he's staring at you, and you've got to be honest, you've started staring at him too. 

Somehow, the round face that used to signify immaturity doesn't seem childish anymore; maybe it's because of his assholish behaviour, or the way he's looking at you, but your finding his rounded body way more pleasing than childish: he's not bony, he just looks like he's been surviving on pie, and a good portion of that pie went to his ass, and you're not even going to try and call that pleasing. It's just fucking hot. 

You lean against the sink, and you can see that he's off-balance, that he expected you to be long gone by now. 

"What's your name?" 

"What? Oh, my name - John. My name's John."

You hold out your hand. "Dirk." The name sounds strange. The only person who uses your first name is your friend Roxy. Everyone else calls you Bro, Di-Stri, The Smuppetteer - although that particular name only exists on your smuppet website - and, on rare occassions, Mr. Strider.

John shakes your hand. "Dirk. Um, wow, I probably should have asked your name way earlier -"

"Told you you're an asshat," you say with a grin. 

The grin feels strange. With Dave gone, you haven't left the house much, and you're not the type to laugh at what you find online. This might be the first time you've really smiled since he left.

He grins back, and his eyes flicker to your lips. 

Your grin fades to a smirk. "What'cha lookin' at?" You drawl. "See anythan' ya like?"

There's a faint pink tint to his face now, but it doesn't look like embarrassment anymore, and judging by the way his eyes have fixated on your lips, he's not ashamed of a single thing he's thinking. 

You should probably be ashamed of what  _you're_ thinking. He's probably a freshman, your brother's age, and judging by his accent, he's from up North, and his family probably isn't here, and he's been far away from home for a month and a half and is almost definitely vulnerable.

But he looked at your ass before you looked at his. 

And at the moment, he's absentmindedly licking his lips in a way that's rather distracting. 

You have a sudden vision of those lips around the base of your cock, and yeah, if he doesn't stop this, there's no way you're going to have the decency to leave. 

You step forward, putting yourself inches away from him, and he doesn't step back. His eyes do, however, leave your lips and meet yours.

His breathing is irregular. 

You tilt his chin up, gently, and his eyes half-close and his lips part, and you kiss him gently and taste key lime pie - the idiot probably dipped his finger in it before he tripped and threw it at you. You suck on his bottom lip, and he struggles to exhale. His hands flutter up your chest and around your neck, and you feel his hand tangle in your hair, holding your face against his, and you're perfectly okay with that because he's started kissing you back, and he ain't inexperienced. 

He moans into your mouth, and goddamn if that isn't the hottest thing you've ever heard. You reach down and grab his ass and pull his hips flush against yours and you can feel his erection straining against his pants, and you push him back the five feet to his bed and he pulls you down on top of him and grinds his hips up into yours and moans like a porn star.

"John -" you gasp, "lube - condoms -"

He pushes you off him and dives for his bedside table, because of course he keeps everything there, he still hasn't learned the merits of keeping it under your mattress. You grab the hem of your shirt and tug it up, and at some point between when it covers your face and when you pull it off, the sound of John rummaging through the drawer stops, and when your shirt clears your head and you can see again, you see John's eyes sweeping over your chest, your stomach, the trail of fine blond hair that leads below your belt, and he jumps into your lap and wraps his legs around your waist and traces the faint scars that criss-cross your torso and your stomach muscles quiver, you can't help it, and you pull his shirt over his head.

He's blushing, looking down, hunched over like he's trying to cover himself. "Hey, John - hey." You tilt his chin up, trying to force him to look at you, but he manages to avoid your eyes. "John. Look at me." And after a couple seconds, his blue eyes find your orange ones. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just..." and his voice starts out as a mumble and trails off into silence, so his mouth is moving but there's no sound coming out.

"Do you want to stop?" You suddenly feel like a dick, taking advantage of an eighteen-year-old who's far away from home and, on this day above all others, Parent's Day, probably feeling lonely as fuck, and he probably just wants to cuddle or some shit and have company and here you are, ripping his clothes off.

But he's shaking his head, and you see determination in his eyes. "No, no, it's just -" He looks down, and you recognize that look. That's the look of someone who thinks that their body isn't good enough. 

You wrap one arm around him and push him backwards a little with the other hand, letting him lean back on your arm, and begin kissing his smooth throat - gently, you don't particularly want to give him any hickies - and you move down to his collarbone, across to his shoulders, and then down his chest. You lick one nipple and prod it with your tongue, and his head falls backwards, a stifled moan escaping through his lips. You turn your attention to his other nipple, and this time the moan isn't stifled, and he threads his fingers through your hair.

You move your lips downward, pushing him backwards until he's leaning against your knees and your arm, his abs clenching, although you don't know if that's because of your mouth or his own attempts to hold himself up. You can hear every single inhale, every single exhale, and they're speeding up, hitching in his throat. 

He pulls your head up by the hair, uses you to haul himself up and press himself against you as he kisses you fiercely, nipping at your tongue and lips, and you drop your hands to squeeze his ass, because it's just as soft and round beneath his jeans as it looked, and he's tilting his hips forwards to give you more to work with and that has the added bonus of rubbing his cock against yours and you are the last person to complain about that. 

He moans your name into your mouth, and goddamn, he makes it sound like the dirtiest word in the English language. You bring one hand around between you so you can unzipper and unbutton his pants, and you rub him through the cotton. He gasps and bucks into your hand, and you trace the elastic band of his boxers, drawing a groan out of him. 

He scrambles off of you for a minute so he can kick his jeans off, and you take the opportunity to remove yours as well, and this time it's you who has to stop and stare - he spares you only a glance before crawling on top of you, but your eyes graze over his long, thin cock, tilted just a little to the right, the flared head -

And then he's pushing you back into the bed as he grabs the lube, but you take it from him and coat your fingers with it, because the way he's pushing down on your dick he's not looking to fuck your ass, and if he's going to get stretched out, you're going to do it, you're going to keep your hands on his ass for as long as is possible, because it's smooth and soft but not flabby under your hands as you spread it and press one finger against his opening and a groan escapes his throat and he places his teeth against your throat but doesn't bite and you're grateful for that, because how the hell would you be able to explain that to Dave?

You stop thinking about Dave, and push a finger inside John. And now he does bite you, gently, on your shoulder, and that's covered by your shirt so it's okay if you get a mark there, and you're not being particularly gentle with John but he doesn't seem to mind, which is good, because you really, really can't hold back for too much longer. His ass is tight around your finger and his dick is grinding gently against yours, and you know he's only moving slowly because there's no lube on either of your dicks yet, and you press a second finger inside him and he tucks his face against your throat and you can feel his hot breath hitting your skin in short bursts, and you start scissoring your fingers and he's not even moaning, he's making these strange, throttled sounds in the back of his throat, and they're absolutely incredible and when you push in a third it's not because you think he's ready but because he's rocking on your fingers and begging you to put in a third - "Hurry  _up_ , oh please Dirk dear  _god_ -" - and how the hell can you possibly say no when your own breath is short and your penis is aching?

"Ok, I'm good, stick your dick in me, fuck me, fuck me fuck me fuck me, shit almighty -" his words run together breathlessly as he pulls off of your fingers and reaches under himself to find your dick.

"Wait - John -  _wa_ _it_ -" you grab his hips and push him back so he's sitting on your thighs, and he whines wordlessly, and he looks like a kicked puppy, his enormous blue eyes filled with betrayal, and you feel strangely compelled to reassure him as you stretch to reach the box of condoms - "Dude, it's all right, but I seriously doubt you want me to fuck you without a condom or lube, that would  _not_ end well -"

"Why? Do you have an STD?" He looks mildly panicked.

You shake your head. "No, I'm clean, but condoms are  _necessary_." You pull a condom out of the box and wag your finger in his face. "Never, ever,  _ever_ have sex without a condom -" 

He groans and grabs the condom, ripping it open and pinching the tip as he rolls it over your dick, and he grabs you when it's all the way on you, strokes you, and then he grins evilly at you and you realize that you were the one who just moaned but it ain't your fault, you're fucking  _hard_ , and he lubes you up, and you know he's taking longer than necessary on purpose, and wasn't he the one who was trying to sit on your dick not five fucking minutes ago? But he seems fascinated by the way your muscles twitch and the way your eyes roll back in your head when he presses his thumb to the base of your dick and pushes a smooth line up to your head, and you don't know when he's going to stop and you need to be inside him,  _now_ , so you grab his wrist to stop him and you sit up and tangle your hands in his hair and kiss him, careful not to hit his glasses, and you grab his hips and lift him and guide him gradually onto your cock, listening to him make those strange throaty noises again, and when you're squeezed more tightly than you ever hoped, inside him up to your balls you pause, wait, you don't want to hurt him, but he doesn't seem to care, and he's rolling his hips and grinding his tight ass onto you and shit almighty his ass was sculpted by God himself, there's no way it could exist otherwise, and you grab it and kiss him, and he's biting at your lips and you're biting at his, and then he pushes you down onto your back so he can brace himself against you and he begins riding you, and you do your best to angle your hips properly to hit his prostate, and judging by the way he brings his arm to his mouth and bites it to stop himself from screaming, you did something right. 

You grab hold of his hips and help him; he's not in the most comfortable position, and you don't want his thighs to give out. He brings one hand from your stomach to your bicep, and splays his other hand across your abdomen, pushing down on you to push himself up, and the sound he's making in the back of his throat combines with the sound of his ass slapping against your thighs to make the sound angels make when they're happy, and you're moaning now too, you sound like a fucking sixteen year old, but you can't help it - 

You're going to come soon, you know you are, and you wrap your hand around the base of his cock and stroke, sharp, short strokes, and he yelps and bites his arm again and he's coming, all over your chest, and his ass is squeezing you and he hasn't stopped riding you and you take half a second to be grateful that you held out this long before you're coming inside him, and your vision goes a fuzzy and you hear white noise and as it disappears, you realize with mild annoyance that you're going to need to clean yourself off again. 

John is lying on your chest, though, and you don't have any particular urge to move, and a glance at the clock shows you that you still have two hours, so you let John lie there for fifteen minutes as his breathing calms down before you nudge him and remind him that you both have to get cleaned up and that you can't actually stay forever, you have a brother to get to. 

But for some reason, even after you find the towel you used to dry your face and reuse it to clean the jizz off your body, even after you're both dressed, even after you've put your cap back on, you don't want to leave.

You end up sitting there with him until Dave calls, listening to him talk about Nicolas Cage - whom he calls  _Nic_ , like he's on a first-name basis with the actor - and about his favorite movies, which range from the shitty to the incredible, and the pranks he's pulled over the years, and in him you find a willing audience as you talk out the problems you've had with your latest robot, and the problems you've had keeping up with your smuppet customers - he laughs until he cries when he finds out you're called the Smuppetteer, and you can't really blame him; after all, it was meant as a joke, given to you by Roxy and placed on your website by her when she hacked it.

You're actually sad to leave when Dave calls.

You half wish you got John's number. 

But you'll never see him again, and that's probably okay; he's just a freshman, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you thought that any of this - from the sink in John's room to the three-hour lab to the whole kid-gets-his-own-room-because-he's-asthmatic thing - was a bit of a stretch or a little unrealistic, you should know that all of it is based on my own school.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of fall break

_I'm here_.

You send the text to Dave and wait.

A month after Parent's Weekend, you're back at his school, picking him up before fall break. Well, him and a friend.

A month ago, you had been eating dinner in some little Chinese restaurant, Dave babbling away, when he brought up the subject of fall break.

"So I have a friend who lives up North, and he's not going home for break. Could he stay with us? So he doesn't have to stay here alone?"

You'd been a little distracted since you picked him up - John's eyes were still sharp in your mind - but that probably helped Dave, in the end. You doubt you'd have said yes if you were paying attention. But now that you're here, you don't think you mind; it'll be good for Dave, to have a friend with him all week. That way he doesn't have to sit around with your sorry ass. 

It helps that, in your mind, the intensity of John's eyes has faded.

You don't know why you were so fixated on him, really. Were you that starved for company? That one freshman in college with a nice ass who was willing to listen to you whine about your problems was the greatest person alive?

Good thing you'll never see him again. Not that it would matter if you did.

Of course, there's a reason why you're sitting in your car instead of helping Dave with his shit. 

You're screwing around on your phone when the door opens, letting in a loud voice. "Yeah, we can just keep our shit in here, no need to put it in the trunk -"

You look up, in the rearview mirror. Dave clambers into the backseat, dragging his bag in with him. And then -

You have a near-instinctive reaction to those electric blue eyes.

You don't even need to see the rest of his face.

You're forever indebted to your shades for hiding the fact that your eyes are twice their normal size.

John isn't quite so lucky, or so controlled. His eyes are enormous. He's frozen in place, half-in the car. 

Dave hasn't even noticed the mutual recognition that passed between the two of you in that split-second. "Anyway - what are you staring at?" He follows John's gaze. "Oh. His shades. Yeah."

You look back at him and frown. He's not wearing shades.

Or, to be more specific, he's not wearing the ones you gave him. "What is on your face?"

"John gave them to me - oh, by the way, this is John. John, this is my Bro. He really doesn't like being called by his name, and he'll probably beat the shit out of me with a fuckin' puppet if I tell you, so you can just call him Bro."

John climbs in the car, his eyes never once leaving yours. When Dave says you don't like being called by your name, his eyebrows quirk up, just a little, just enough to remind you that you told him your name without even being asked. 

You ignore him. 

That turns out to be impossible. 

Everytime you glance in your rearview mirror, he's there, and his eyes are usually on you. Dave doesn't comment on it, so either (A) he's ignoring it, (B) he's not seeing it, or (C) you and John are somehow managing to look in the mirror at the same time. You don't like any of your options.

Every time he speaks, your ears perk up, trying to catch every sound he makes, every word that comes out of his mouth. He has an incredibly annoying habit of licking his lips, which he does about fifty percent of the times your eyes meet, and you really don't know if he's doing it unconsciously or on purpose. 

"Bro, tell'im about the first time I won a strife -" Dave says loudly, interrupting your train of thought. 

"That was literally a year ago, you can't tell me you don't remember it."

"Well, I  _can_ , but I tell shit stories. I get all metaphorical and crap, rambling on for hours, like the ten-hour version of the Nyan Cat video, just the same fuckin' thing on repeat until someone shuts me up -"

John smacks Dave in the stomach. Dave hunches over, dramatically gasping for air like he'd almost suffocated. "I shut you up. Shut up."

You grin.

It's a mistake.

John's eyes turn back to you and they're not looking at your shades anymore, they're looking at your lips, and he's tracing his lips with his tongue again and you know it's unconscious, he's so focused on your mouth there's no way he's thinking about looking attractive. 

"Um. The first time you beat me..." Your thoughts were scattered at the beginning of the sentence. Dave noticed. You can see his slight frown, and you know he didn't notice what was going on before. If he's reacting to it now and wasn't reacting to it earlier, he's just noticing it now. "It was summer. So it's hot as fuck outside, and we're up on the roof in shorts and shades - these things aren't just a fashion statement, they're fucking useful - and we've got a katana each, and we're already dripping sweat, we'd only been outside for two minutes and hadn't even started fighting yet, but the sun was killer. And we're up there, and usually he makes the first move, makes him easy as fuck to block, but he's standing there, in a defensive stance, like he's waiting for me to make the first move, but I'm not pulling that shit. So we start circling, right, and he feints a couple of times, but it doesn't matter, I'm not falling for any of that shit. And then, for no goddamn reason, he switches hands, starts using his right hand, and swings. And it was awful. Horrible. The kid's been left-handed since he was born, his right hand is basically useless. So I parry, right, no big deal, and he's still swinging at me with his right hand, and I'm thinking he's had a mental breakdown, I slow down, and -"

"Wait, what?" Dave says indignantly. "No, no, that's not -"

"Yes, it is."

"No, because you were laughing -"

"Cause you sucked ass."

"No, because -"

"No. Because I thought something was wrong."

"You thought something was wrong, and you kept laughing?" John interjects.

"Well, I started off laughing, but he kept swinging, and I was starting to get worried, and I'm slowing down, and all of a sudden he switches hands again, turns in the exact opposite direction of his momentum, and bam, there's a katana at my throat." You watch John's eyes flicker to said throat. 

If he spends the whole week looking at you like that, you're going to end up screwing your brother's best friend down the hallway from where your brother's asleep and unaware.

Because there's no way you're taking advantage of this week. You decided that the minute your brain worked through the implications of his blue eyes in your Jeep. He's not just any freshman anymore, he's your brother's best friend, and he was when you fucked him the first time, but you've forgiven yourself for that because you didn't know. This time, though, this time is different.  He's a guest in your house and your brother's best friend and you're not going to spend the entire week banging him. 

And you're very well-behaved, for the first few hours. You order pizza. When Dave smells it, he sighs happily and says, "Nothing like a good home-cooked meal," and you'd love to take it as sarcasm, but considering the number of times you cook per month, he might be serious. 

John and Dave sit on the couch together, in silence and on their phones, for a full half-hour.

They play video games, and you find that John is equally as competitive as Dave.

And throughout everything, if you're in the room, you're noticing John out of the corner of your eye. It's not purposeful - you're not staring at him for the sake of staring - but somehow, your eyes are consistantly drawn to him. And, since you're looking, you notice things.

You see it when John first realizes that he's an idiot for not recognizing you as Dave's brother. He pulls Dave's shades off his face fifteen minutes after you get home, and you see his brain whirring as it connects your weird eyes to Dave's weird ones. And in that second, you see his eyes flicker down to Dave's new aviators and then up to yours, and you see him remembering Dave's old pointy shades, the ones that were just like yours, and you see him mentally berate himself for not noticing. You see it when he nearly sits on a katana and laughs about thinking Dave was lying about the swords everywhere, and then you see him look at your torso, and you understand that he's connecting the swords to your scars. 

You're in the kitchen, chewing on the last slice of cold pizza and working on a rather specific piece of programming that you're hoping will fix Sawtooth when Dave sets down his controller and announces: "All right, I'm going to take a shower. John, you can, I don't know, but I take the longest showers ever, so just a warning, find something that will keep you busy for at least forty minutes."

John nods and grins. 

The bathroom door shuts.

The water turns on. 

John stands, stretches. His shirt pulls up a little, and you can see his lower back and the place where his ass begins to curve out, and no, that's a distracting sight. You're not allowed to look at that.

So you stare at your computer, refusing to turn around, even when John enters the kitchen, even when he approaches you, and even when he wraps his arms around your waist and rests his chin on your shoulder.

"So. Dirk. Or Bro. Which do you prefer?" He asks cheekily. 

"I'm busy," you snap. Your eyes remain glued to your screen. You flatly refuse to look over at his eyes, millimeters away from you.

He doesn't take the hint. "No, you're not, you're screwing around on your computer to avoid looking at me, because you're an asshole who would rather pretend that nothing happened that face the fact that you screwed your brother's best friend." He sounds perfectly pleased with himself, and his hands slide down your stomach.

You sigh and pull his arms off of you. You turn to face him. "All right then, let's talk." He looks slightly shocked. He probably didn't expect you to turn around. You let go of his wrists, and they fall limply to his sides. "I didn't know you were Dave's best friend. I had no idea. I don't have the excuse of ignorance anymore, and I'm not going to continue making a mistake that I  _know is a mistake_."

For a moment, he stares at you with a face like an abandonned puppy, eyes wide and eyebrows pulled together and mouth slightly open and he appears to have stopped breathing, and a wave of guilt threatens to drown you even though it makes no sense - it was a one-night stand for God's sake, not a fuckin' marriage proposal - but then it clears up, and he's back to his normal, happy self.

"Ok," he says cheerfully. "I guess - I mean, it was just a one-time thing, and the fact that we have a mutual - connection - doesn't really change that, does it. Sorry. I'll leave you alone."

He walks away into Dave's room. 

It's not  _your_ fault that he sways his ass like that when he walks. It  _is_ your fault that you can't look away, but Jesus Christ, that boy is blessed.

It's no one's fault that you have no idea what's going on.

And it's someone's fault - you don't know whose, but someone is at fault for this - that you feel a wave of regret and loneliness, and unlike the little wave of guilt from before, this one is a tsunami, this one is drowning you, and you don't know why, because there's no way you're in love and you're not that desperate and you'll easily survive without John and this is all for the best anyway but. 

But somehow, all the logic in the world won't take away the ball of lead that's settled in your stomach.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's a seductive son of a bitch, and Dirk is getting attached to the kid who knows that he's called "The Smuppetteer" and doesn't mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, sorry it's taking me so long to update. It's the last week before finals and also I may have taken a break to write a fluffy Kill la Kill fic.

He's doing it on purpose. There's no other explanation for it.

Over the past three days, he's started  _doing_ things. 

He'll be playing video games, and will somehow end up on his knees in front of the couch, his arms resting on the coffee table, his back arched so that his ass is in the air. Apparently, he loses more if he's sitting properly. You pointedly ask if his knees hurt. He smoulders at you over his shoulder as he says, "Eh, it's worth it."

He doesn't eat like a normal human being, either. He eats strawberries like he's giving them a blow job. When you make steak medium rare, instead of putting the pieces in his mouth, he sticks out his tongue to catch the juice that drips from it, and then guides it into his mouth. He drinks from a water bottle and somehow makes it more pornographic than actual porn. 

He gets out of the shower and wanders around in a towel while he dries off, the towel slung low on his hips and slipping lower every second.

And sometimes, all he does is catch your eye - which isn't all that difficult, considering how aware of him you are at all times - and grin, and you feel an electric current pass between you. 

It's fucked up.

He's your brother's best friend, and fifteen years younger than you. 

But for some reason, for some idiotic and unknown reason, he's fixated on you. 

You were terrified, on the second day he was here. Dave went to shower. John found his way into your garage, and sat down behind you while you tinkered with the chassis for your newest robot. It was the simplest one you'd made in years - all you wanted it to do was cut felt for smuppets - but for whatever reason, it wasn't working.

When John sat down behind you, you figured you were going to have to peel him off of you, and you'd get oil and grease all over him, and Dave would start asking questions because he'd somehow missed all of John's antics but there was no way he could miss that.

But he didn't even touch you.

He just asked what you were doing.

You relaxed as he talked to you, as he did the same impossible thing he did before and held a conversation with you. Well, no, not really. You've always thought of 'conversations' as things adults did to break an awkward silence. John didn't have a conversation with you. He had a talk with you, he communicated with you. He didn't bother with the small talk. He didn't have to. He learned a good portion of your deep dark secrets after you had sex with him. There was no need to hide the fact that the robot you were working on was intended to cut felt into shapes required for fucktoys. There was no point in refusing to show him how it worked. You felt strangely safe, strangely comfortable, in his presence; he was here for you, and not just the one part of you that he knew, but the rest of it too.

And as soon as you thought that, you questioned your sanity. You're thirty-three years old, for God's sake, not a romantic teenager with strange ideas of what constituted love.

You also questioned that. What made you use the word 'love'? Where the fuck did that come in? You'd known the kid for three days, and you're already waxing poetic about  _love_. You're not in  _Romeo and Juliet_ , thank god - it would suck to have survived for this long, and then to die along with four other people and John for no damn reason.

And then you heard Dave call John, and John stood, bent down, grabbed your face, kissed your parted lips, and waltzed out without bothering to pull up his jeans, which were slipping down to show his ass.

It's extraordinarily distracting.

You don't care.

It's becoming a problem. 

You convince yourself that since there are only three days left, you can totally maintain your composure and keep your promise. The kisses John sneaks in before he leaves your garage don't count as breaking your promise. And you'll make sure you can find a reason for him not to visit ever again.

Three days left.

It's all you're thinking when you head into your bedroom for the night. Well, no, that's a lie, and you're not one to lie to yourself. You're thinking about John, about his eyes and his lips and his laugh and his voice and his sighs and his moans and the way he squeezed his eyes shut and bit his arm to keep from screaming and how he tried to keep from laughing when he hit you in the face with his fucking pie.

You're not sure what it means, that you're not thinking about him in a strictly sexual way. He wasn't exactly your first one-night stand, and you've never thought about your one-night stands like this, in something that could almost be described as a loving manner. You've certainly never thought less of your partners, but you're not one to dwell on them, either. To be perfectly honest, there are several of them who could literally run into you on the street that you wouldn't recognize. 

But you sincerely doubt that you'll ever be able to forget John's eyes. Maybe, decades from now, you'll pass him on the street, and if he's not looking at you, you won't recognize his aged face. But if he looked at you -

You'd know. You'd know him in an instant. 

You shove your face into the pillow and curse. It's four in the fucking morning, the college students went to sleep earlier than you did, there's no way in hell you're getting up before eleven, you're a thirty-three year old man with a successful career in sex puppets and a successful if slightly more limited career in robotics, you could probably have your choice of sexual partners, if you wanted to settle down with someone you'd probably have your choice of spouses, but you're sitting here pining over an eighteen year old boy, and not just any eighteen year old boy, but probably one out of the, like, ten boys who are entirely off-limits for more reasons than just the utter creepiness of being nearly double his age. 

You curse again, and the pillow doesn't do you the favor of muffling the sound entirely.

It doesn't matter. Dave sleeps like a rock. You actually had to train him to wake up to his alarm, and to this day, if you want to wake him up, you have to set his alarm. 

You hear the breathy whisper of your door opening and sit up, twisting your body in a way it should never be twisted, and see a figure standing there in your doorway. It ain't Dave. You'd recognize his silhouette anywhere.

"John?" You hiss. "What are you doing?"

"I heard you curse," and his voice is rough and full of sleep. You cursed into the pillow and the kid woke the fuck up.

"I'm fine. Go back to sleep."

But he makes his way into your room, and you can tell he's blind, although it's anyone's guess as to whether it's from the darkness or if he didn't put on his glasses, but either way he's taking each step carefully with his hands out in front of him. "Why were you cursing?"

"I wasn't. That implies that I cursed more than once."

"Fine. Why did you curse?" His hands hit the lower end of the bed and he grabs it.

"I cursed twice."

You can only see the outline of his face, but you know he's rolling his eyes. He feels his way around to the side of the bed and sits down. His pale legs stand out in the darkness, and you realize he's wearing boxers and a sweatshirt. "You didn't answer the question. Why did you curse? Twice?"

"How did you hear me curse? Why are you in here?" You shift away from him, but he just takes it as an invitation to swing his legs up on the bed and scoot closer to you. 

"I'm a light sleeper. Dave sleeps like he's dead and I sleep like I'm not asleep. I'm in here because I heard you curse." He pulls your blanket up over his legs - "It's cold. Anyway. Why were you cursing?"

"It's none of your business."

"Let's be honest," he says, and you almost want to grin because you've been nothing but honest since he climbed into your car. "You've told me what are probably the most embarrassing things about your life. You've told me about some of the people you've had sex with. You're not concerned about hiding things from me. So If you don't want to tell me, it's probably about me. Is it about me, Dirk?"

You've gotten used to him using your name, even if he only used it when he was in the garage with you. But here, in the dark, in your bed, it's somehow more intimate than it was before. You wrack your brain for a time when you gave a sexual partner your real name, and can't think of a single instance. 

"Diiiii-iiiiiirkkkkk," he sings quietly. "Tell the truuuuu-uuuuuth."

"Little shit."

You can't see, but you can see his blindingly white teeth in the dark. He scoots over until his leg is pressed against yours and he presses his face into your shoulder. He's shaking, and for a moment you think he's crying, but no, he's laughing, laughing like the funniest thing in the world just happened but he's not allowed to make noise.

"The hell are you laughing at?"

He looks up at you. "You're a dick." His arm wraps around your neck and he pulls you to him and kisses you, tracing your parted lips with the tip of his tongue. His body is pressed flush against yours, and somehow, in the dark, you don't see the problems you saw before. The soft cotton of his sweatshirt is brushing against your bare torso, and John's tongue has slipped inside your mouth. 

Dave is not far away.

But he's a deep sleeper.

That doesn't solve the problem of his friendship with John.

But John doesn't belong to him.

You're fifteen years older than he is.

But John is an adult who can make his own choices.

But so are you. And you can choose not to hurt your brother for the sake of your own libido.

You gently push John off of you, and for some reason, your heart breaks at the sight of his confusion. "No. You are my brother's best friend." You don't understand the shit your heart is pulling. It's been four non-consecutive fucking days, not a lifetime. 

He crosses his arms over his chest. "So?"

"So, that makes this not okay."

He throws up his arms. "Are you married to him?"

You recoil. " _What_?"

"Am  _I_ married to him?"

"The fuck are you getting at?"

"What I'm  _getting at_ is that he doesn't own either of us! And guess what? I'm gonna go ahead and assume that once I leave here I'm never coming back and if you ever come to my college you're not getting out of your car, and these next three days will be the last ones I'll ever see you." His fingers are intertwining with yours and you can feel your defenses falling and your self-control disappearing as you hear your own excuses repeated back to you. "And it will be years before I'll be able to stop thinking about you, so at the very least, give me more to think about to make the next several years less boring?" 

You can hear the plea in his voice and it's the same one you've been ignoring from yourself for days and Dave never needs to know and you growl as you push John backward and hold yourself over him, sucking on his lips and tasting him, his toothpaste and the same exquisite and ethereal taste that you barely noticed last time but can now identify as his, his right hand tangling in your hair and his left finding its way down your neck and your back, his hips pushing up against yours, and his sweatshirt is covering up too much of his skin and you kneel with one knee between his and pull it off, revealing his body an inch at a time, and you're going to worship his body with all the zeal with which so many of your neighbors worship God, because he's right, and you've already wasted time. 

Neither of you need the same time to warm up to each other as you did the last time. It's cold in the house, just the way you like it, and your warm bodies are already against each other this time, already a part of each other, and God help you you're fucked up in so many ways and this time you know it but John is tracing the muscles of your back and tracing your ribs and they say you learn something new every day and today you're learning about the shell of his ear, and this time you're not only not surprised by his throaty noises you're expecting them, purposefully eliciting them, keeping your ears open so that you can hear them, and they make thousands of times more sense than your arguments. 

His boxers and your boxers are on the floor beside his sweatshirt, and your mouth is on his jaw beside his mouth, and there's a condom on your dick so that you don't have to waste time putting it on later, and your fingers are coated in cold lube and inside him, and the cold lube is no match for his heated body and skin, and he's trying to be silent but he's whining, whining and begging you to hurry up but you can't, he's not ready and you won't hurt him, so you cup your fingers instead as you move your mouth to his to help keep him silent as you hit the lump of tissue that sends his hips bucking up against yours, and you should have just waited to take your boxers off because the way his cock is rubbing against you is going to make you cum before you can ever enter him. So you begin to rush, against your better judgment, fingerfucking him as he gasps and buries his face in your neck in an attempt to keep quiet, and finally you decide that he's ready, and you lube up your cock and slide inside, millimeter by millimeter and wanting to feel your hips touch his ass but not wanting to hurt him, you can never hurt him, even though he's begging and pleading with you to go faster, because you can hear the hitch in his breath as you move in and you can feel his dick softening and you know you were wrong, he wasn't stretched out quite enough yet, and you're already going fast enough, faster than you should, and when you're buried inside him you pause, waiting for him, waiting until you feel his dick harden, waiting until he's pushing against you again, and you go slowly, refusing to rush now, you've got time and you want to use it, because once this is over he's going to have to leave you so that Dave doesn't wake up to find him in your bed, so you take your time, listening to his strangled moans turn into your name, just your name, and it's been a really long time since you heard your name and you're going to savor every single time he says it, and as you pull out of him and push back in you match your rhythm to his sighs and make your name sacred, tie it to this moment, the two of you under the blankets, moving like one person - no, moving like two, moving like two together, and you can feel every inch of his body and every inch of your body and ever square centimeter where they touch, and it's electric, as electric as his eyes, and you interrupt him to whisper " _Open your eyes_ " into his ear and he does, and you push his sweaty hair away from them so you can see them, you want to remember them, when you hear your name you want to think of them, and he stretches up and kisses you and you can't see his eyes anymore but you're okay with that, and when your rhythm speeds up he stops kissing you but doesn't move away, sighing and moaning against your mouth, whispering your name against your lips, and you feel him smile when you gasp out his name, and when he cums you kiss him fiercely, swallowing his noise, and he does the same for you when you cum inside him, kissing you even as his own breathing returns to normal, and you gasp out a mangled version of his name as his tongue swipes against your teeth. 

When you roll off of him, he rolls up against you, flatly refusing to care about the cum on your stomach and his, putting his head on your chest. You brush your fingers through his hair - still soft, even after using your conditioner for three days - and he whispers, "I can hear your heartbeat slowing down."

You laugh quietly. "That's what happens when you're healthy - your heart slows down really fuckin' fast."

"How the hell are you healthy, when all you eat are doritos and pizza?"

"I have no idea, John. No idea." 

He stays silent after that, apparently listening to your heartbeat, but doesn't move until the sun begins to peek through your window and you remember that you didn't even lie down in the first place until four o'clock, and you make him go back to Dave's room for the rest of the night. He finally sighs and agrees that he probably should, and he helps you clean up and dress, and pulling you into a soft, tired kiss before sneaking out of your room.

The only thing you have time to think about, between when your head hits the pillow and when you fall asleep, is that you're screwed and it's all your own fault.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gives Dirk a blow job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's really short. There's more coming, I promise, but I had a snow day today and decided to write a chapter really quick while I had time so I wouldn't leave you hanging for too long.

The next day, Dave comments on John's bouncy exuberance.

You do your best to act normally, and Dave has always been entirely unaware of what's going on around him unless it involves swords. You're impressed he noticed the change in John's behavior at all.

Dave takes an early shower - he and John are going out to a party, hosted by one of Dave's older friends - and John glides into your garage. He wastes no time in occupying your mouth, and you sit there helplessly, unable to pull him closer to you, fingers covered in motor oil that John doesn't have time to clean off. 

He unzips your jeans.

"John, what are you -"

"Shh," he says, trying and failing to reassure you.

"I don't think -"

He kisses you again, silencing your half-hearted protests that are based more on his timing than anything else. You feel his hands pulling you through your boxers. "John -" You gasp out as his mouth disappears from yours and he moves down. 

"Yes, Dirk?" He asks, before grazing his teeth up the side of your dick. 

You want to thread your fingers through his hair, and you can't, and it's killing you.

He licks a stripe up the other side. "Dirk?"

A low moan escapes your lips, and your eyes close.

He swirls his tongue around the head of your cock. "Dirk. Why aren't you watching?"

You open your eyes.

He's on his knees between your legs, looking up at you over his glasses as he presses his lips against your cock and allows it to part his lips, move past his teeth, and there it is, the mental picture from a month ago made real, the picture of his lips sliding down your dick, and you bump against the back of his throat and keep going, and his lips are around the base of your cock and his cheeks are hollowed and pressed against you, and he's sucking and your teeth are clenched together, your breath whistling between them as you clench your hands in fists in an attempt to keep them off of him, you can't get him dirty, but that's  _really friggin difficult to remember_ when his mouth is sliding up and down and he's humming and moving way, way too slowly for you. 

You know he can feel your muscles tensing and you know he can hear you gasping and moaning his name and you know he feels it when your hips buck up into his mouth but he pulls his mouth off your dick and you nearly grab him and push him back down and he grins at your frusturation, licking precum and spit off his lips, and grips you tightly with his hand instead of his mouth, jerking you off, twisting his palm at the end of each stroke. "Almost ready to cum, Dirk? Are you going to cum for me, Dirk?" And his fucking voice is smooth and seductive and soft and yeah, last night he definitely noticed how much you loved it when he said your name, and he noticed it just now, when you groan and your hips twitch and your hand goes again for his hair, and you can feel the tightening, that familiar feeling that means - " _John_ -" you gasp, and his mouth is sliding back down your dick again, and when his nose is buried in the puff of blonde hair at the base of your cock you cum, your head thrown back and your hands clenched into fists for lack of anything better to hold on to, and you close your eyes and your senses heighten and you can feel his throat contracting around you as you explode inside him and you can feel him swallowing and you can feel his tongue pressing against you as he draws out as much as you can give him.

Finally, he pulls off your dick, tucks it back inside your boxers, and zips up your jeans. 

He stradles you and sits in your lap, carefully avoiding any oil that's dripped on your pants, and kisses you. You hold your hands awkwardly to the side, not wanting to accidentally get oil on his pants, and you flick your tongue inside your mouth in an attempt to clear out the taste of you so that you can taste him again. But before you can, you hear Dave calling for John, and with one last brutal, brutally fast kiss, he's gone. 

You turn back to the hunk of metal on your worktable. 

You can't for the life of you remember what you were doing with it. 

Your mind floats to John.

" _What are the wires for_?" he'd ask. " _Why are they on all sides? Is it the centerpiece for something? Is it an addition to something already built_?"

"I have no idea," you mutter. 

You have his laugh memorized, and the memory of it echoes through your brain. 

You remember what it was for and you grin, ignore the fact that you were talking to yourself, and return to work.


	5. Chapter 4, part B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Think of this as a continuation of the last chapter.   
> Except without blow jobs.   
> This is the drunk, fluffy continuation of the last chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, second short-as-fuck chapter of the day. It was supposed to be part of the last chapter, but like I said, I didn't know how much time I'd have to write and I didn't want you guys to have to wait five years for another chapter.  
> Now. I've never been drunk myself, but I've seen my sister and her friends drunk, and I've seen some of the videos they took while drunk, and every single line is something one of them said.   
> Every.  
> Single.   
> One.  
> Except for when John tries to seduce Bro. I'll be honest, I haven't heard any of them try to seduce anyone, and I really don't want to.

Both of them come home drunk.

"How the hell did you get home?" You growl at Dave. "If you tell me you  _drove -_ "

Dave shakes his head once, but stumbles dizzily. "Naaaaah... m'frayund drove'm'ack."

"Your friend drove you back?" You repeat as John trips and falls onto your couch. 

"Mm-hmm." 

"Where's your car?"

Dave starts grinning, laughing. Why is he laughing? Did he crash it? If he crashed it - "We'ad tuh leeve it thayre," he says, as though it's the funniest thing in the world. Suddenly, his face crumples and he grabs for you, misses, and nearly tips over, but you grab him and hold him steady. " _Sssssssssssoooooooooo_   _tttttttiiiiiiieeeeerrrrrddddd, brooooooooooo_ ," 

You resist the urge to laugh. He and John are eighteen, they shouldn't have been drinking. Their friends shouldn't have been drinking. But John is currently giggling to himself on the couch, and Dave looks like being tired is the saddest thing he can possibly imagine, and he's whispering "So tired" under his breath like he'll die if he doesn't remember to say it, and you'll be honest, it's hysterical. 

"All right, Davey, let's put you to bed."

"Bed?" He shrieks. " _I need my bed_!" 

"Yes, yes, I know," and you try to lead him into his room, but he's stumbling and tripping over non-existant things, and he's muscular but not big, so you just scoop him up like a baby and carry him to his room amidst strange flashbacks to doing this when he was little and fell asleep on the couch - strange because he's not sleeping but awake and whining about being tired and wanting his bed. 

You set him gently on his bed and pull off his shoes. He begins wiggling like a worm in an attempt to get out of his pants, and you stare at the ceiling as you help him pull them off. "Christ, kid," you mutter as he happily pulls his blankets up over his head. "The fuck did you drink?"

You hear him snore. 

You drag his trashcan next to his bed, and return to the living room for John.

He's still laughing quietly on the couch. "Can you walk?" You ask, although you sincerely doubt it. 

You wonder vaguely how they got from the car to the front door in the first place. 

John nods, still laughing like he'd just taken laughing gas, and uses you to haul himself up. He promptly tips over backwards, and thank god for the couch, because you really don't know what you'd do if he got a concussion or something. "Right, then," you mutter, scooping him up the same way you carried Dave.

John's different, though. He swings his arms around your neck and plants a sloppy, alcohol-scented kiss on your cheek, then rests his head under your chin, finally silent. He's light, too, lighter than Dave; he's the same height, certainly not small, but he doesn't have Dave's muscle tone. 

His eyes are closed, his face peaceful. 

He's beautiful.

You shake that thought out of your head. It doesn't make sense. 

You're about to walk through the doorway to Dave's room when John's eyes fly open and his legs and arms fly out, stretching across the doorway and preventing you from entering the room. "What are you doing?" 

"I don't  _wanna_ sleep in'ere t'night. I wanna sleep wi'  _you_."

"John -"

"Wha'?"

"You're drunk."

"An'?"

"No. No. No no no. I am  _not_ having sex with someone who's too drunk to stand up." You lower your voice instinctually, but Dave wouldn't wake up if you played the drums in his ear on a good day, and there's no way he's waking up now. 

"Budt I  _want to_ ," John whines. 

"No."

He keeps whining, even as you turn sideways to try and get him through the door - but then he just holds his arms out to the sides. "Wha if -  _Dick_ _whait_ \- whadif we jus' sleep?"

"No sex? Just sleeping?" You clarify, choosing to ignore his mispronounciation of your name.

John nods decisively. 

You haven't slept straight through the night in years, and Dave looks like he'll be out for a while. You can always wake up early and go back to sleep on the couch - say that John thought your room was Dave's and refused to leave - or just move him after he falls asleep. "All right."

He doesn't relax until you're at your doorway, and then he smiles smugly and relaxes, bringing his arms into his chest. 

He lets you undress him, whines at you until you strip down to boxers as well, and cuddles up against you, resting his head on your chest. 

He's asleep within minutes.

You consider moving him, now that he's asleep, but you'll be honest, you're happy to have him here - happy to have someone else warming up your bed, someone else's rhythmic breathing to listen to as you fall asleep. 

When you wake up several hours later, he's drooling on your shoulder, and you quietly stand and carry his clothing into Dave's room, where Dave is still snoring occasionally. You return for John, and carry him into Dave's room as well, tucking him in under the blanket. 

His eyes flutter open when he hits the cold sheets, but he doesn't focus on anything; only his hands, grasping at you as you pull away, indicate that he knows you're leaving him. 

You feel strangely, incredibly guilty for leaving him there, and strangely lonely as you lie down in your own newly-empty bed.

You don't know why. 

You've never been lonely like this, not since you were a kid. 

So why the fuck do you feel lonely now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel that you should know the story behind when Dave says "Bed? I need my bed!"  
> My sister screamed that in the middle of a crowded bar, and kept saying it until she got home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's an asshole, which isn't really a surprise  
> Some smut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a long-ass chapter to make up for the past two

Both John and Dave spend most of the day in bed. 

You eventually drag Dave out with you to go get his car. Once at his friend's house, his friend drags him inside, begging for help cleaning up. 

You wave as he gets pulled indoors as you pull away. 

John is still in bed when you get home.

"You okay?" You ask gently.

He groans.

"What did you drink last night?"

"I don't even know," he says quietly.

"Do you have a headache?"

He nods, slowly.

You hunt down painkillers and refill John's glass of water.

You've been giving him and Dave near-constant water refills since they woke up. It would be a lot easier if you just set up an IV full of water. 

John pops the painkillers and downs the entire glass of water. 

You sit on the side of his bed and run your fingers through his hair. He reaches one arm out from the safety of the covers and grabs his glasses, sliding them one-handed onto his face. He blinks up at you.

"The two of you are wimps," you say softly. "Spendin' all fuckin' day in bed."

He scrunches his face up. "It _hurts_."

"Have you ever gotten drunk before?"

He grimaces. "Twice. Never this badly."

"Do you remember  _any_ of last night? At all?"

"No." But he frowns. "My arms hurt, though. Like I slammed them into something. I feel like I slammed them into the doorway. Did that happen?"

"Yeah. You decided you didn't want to sleep in here, you wanted to sleep with me, and you blocked the doorway with your arms and wouldn't let me carry you in."

"Carry me?"

"I had to carry you and Dave to bed. Neither of you could walk. The first thing you did when you walked inside was fall face-first on the couch."

He eyes you suspiciously. "I woke up in here, though."

"I moved you in here at around six in the morning."

"What time did we get back?"

"Two."

"Did it really take me that long to fall asleep?"

"Nah, you were asleep in two seconds flat."

You can see a smile playing over his lips. "You let me stay there for a while, though. You were happy to have me there."

"I didn't feel like carrying you again. You're no lightweight."

"Liar liar pants on fire," he says in a low singsong voice.

"I don't care, I don't care, I can buy another pair!" You sing the rejoinder as you stand. 

"Where are you going?" He asks as you head for the door.

"I don't know. I'm thinking of making something for lunch."

"It's two in the afternoon."

"Yeah, and I'm hungry."

You hear the mattress creak as you leave, and John catches up with you, squinting against the light streaming through open blinds and scratching his stomach. 

"Want a sandwich?"

"Sure." He sits down at the table. 

One morning, years ago, you had stumbled out of bed, popped down five painkillers, drunk half a gallon of water in forty-four seconds, ate burning hot oatmeal with no regard for the newly-burned state of your throat, and driven to work, arriving three minutes early. You got through the whole day on three hours of sleep.

Today, there's an eighteen-year-old sitting at your table, out of bed for the first time in the twelve hours since he walked through the door, being handed a constant stream of water and painkillers and being served a sandwich.

"What's so funny?" He asks as you set the sandwich in front of him.

"I'm not laughing."

"You look amused."

"You can tell that? Even through my shades?"

He reaches across the table, practically lying on it, to grab your shades and tug them off. He smiles when he sees your eyes. "Now your shades  _aren't_ in the way. Yeah. You're amused."

You shake your head. "Don't worry about it."

He stares at you through narrowed eyes. "...Did I say something funny last night? Is that it?"

"No. Actually, you didn't say much of anything last night. You did laugh a lot, though. From the minute you walked through the door, you were laughing like someone had given you laughing gas."

"What was I laughing at?"

"I have no idea."

"Oh." He frowns as he munches on a stray piece of ham. "I don't remember anything being funny."

"Do you remember anything at all?"

"Well, no. But still."

He sits in silence for a little while before continuing. "I'm surprised I didn't try to screw you."

"You asked."

"Oh. That's it? All I did was ask?"

"You weren't up for anything else. You couldn't even walk."

"Shit."

You hear someone fiddling with the doorknob, and snatch your shades out of John's hand before he realizes you moved.

Dave stumbles in. "Dude, you got a sandwich? Shit, I had to help clean up beer cans -"

"I hope none of them were yours -"

"Nope, I threw out my vodka bottle last night like a good kiddie -"

You go to whack him, but no, he's got a headache and you're not a total douche. 

You get up and make him a sandwich instead. 

"Damn, Bro, you're being nice today, it's like someone flipped a switch or something, from dick to cool guy, where is this switch and how do you flip it because it could be really useful for future reference, I'll have to write it on my wall, is it a code or something, does it have something to do with puppets, is it in binary, you've gotta tell me, yo John do you know -"

You drop the sandwich in front of him. "Shut up and eat." 

"See, right there, the switch was flipped, you're being a dick again, what happened, is it my voice, it is isn't it, the sound of my smooth voice flips the fuckin' switch -"

You pick up the sandwich and put it in his open mouth. "Dave. Shut. Up."

He sticks out his tongue at you, but he shuts up. 

He's been talking since the day he was born, gurgling at you as you carried him around, this fat-ass little baby who couldn't form words but loved the sound of his own voice anyway. You never had to convince him to open his mouth when it was time to feed him; you just shoved food in his mouth, and he'd swallow it so he could keep making noise. You remember coming home after class, at nineteen years old, and paying the babysitter, who commented that he was the most vocal four-year-old she'd ever watched. He'd been no trouble at all, she said; just followed her around and talked non-stop. He read his way through the entire dictionary by the time he was five, but never used a single word over two syllables unless he was angry or nervous. 

When you wrote your thesis on robotics, seven-year-old Dave read it over, checking to make sure you didn't misuse any words, and pointing out places where a different word would work better.

You still have the first copy of your thesis, somewhere. It's covered in sticky fingerprints.

And for some reason, he's not taking a single English class. He's into photography and film.

Most people don't realize how smart he is. 

You ruffle his hair. 

You look away from him and meet John's eyes. 

He smiles at you. 

"Did Dave ever tell you about the time in middle school when he entered his school's talent show with spoken word poetry?"

Dave groans. John shakes his head.

"He wrote an entire poem, this whole gorgeous piece, all lyrical and shit, and in the last line, it turned out he was talking about his pet worm. He got first place."

Dave's face is bright red.

"He had a pet worm?"

"Yeah, he almost stepped on it when he got off the bus, and since he felt bad he picked it up and brought it inside. He had it for a few days before it died. People thought his poem was about a family member he'd lost. The girl next to me was sobbing her eyes out before he finished."

John snorts as he laughs. "I didn't know you write poetry," he says when he calms down.

"It's not very good," Dave says as he glares at you.

"It had people in tears, it couldn't have been  _that_ bad," John points out.

"That was middle school."

"You've probably gotten better, then."

"Nope. I've gotten worse. My vocabulary has shrunk to the size of a molecule, and not even one looking to bond with another, it's one of the noble gasses, it's too full to accommodate new words."

You leave them to bicker, hunting down your sewing machine and the latest pieces of felt cut out by your wonderful, wonderful felt-cutting robot, saving you from all the awful innaccuracies you always made. 

You stitch together several smuppets, stuffing most of them full of cotton and some of them with vibrators. John and Dave are white noise in the background, light chatter growing into yells as their hangovers wear off and the painkillers kick in. The sound of air bubbles in the water cooler is a regular addition to the conversation, as is the sound of the bathroom door shutting, and the toilet flushing. 

Listening to them yell at each other, you can't help but wonder how much of their earlier complaining was for your benefit. 

John showers first that night, and when he seats himself in your lap, his pajamas are damp and his hair is plastered to his head. "What have you been doing?" 

You hold up a new smuppet. "I've got to mail out thirty of these by tomorrow. I've done fifteen."

He sighs and gets off of you. "I guess I should let you work, then."

"Really? I'm impressed by your self-control."

He grins mischievously. "Don't be. I want you to finish them all  _now_ , so that you'll actually go to bed later." 

"Fine, then you can help." You pass him the bag of cotton. "Stuff 'em as I sew 'em."

He giggles as he stuffs the near-finished one you hand him. "Your version of 'I wash, you dry,' huh?"

You grin. "It's a strange household I run."

"Just a little."

"What's your house like?"

"Full of shaving cream and clown posters."

"Clown posters?"

"I liked clowns when I was little, and when I grew out of them, my dad left the clowns in the house."

"Sounds creepy."

"Coming from the dude with a puppet on his dresser." He nods at Lil' Cal where he perches on the edge of your wardrobe. "You have a skewed sense of creepy, I think."

"Don't diss Lil' Cal."

"Why not? He's honestly more terrifying than anything I saw as a kid."

You glance up at him. He hasn't been used for terror in quite some time. You used to use him when you and Dave strifed, but when Dave got better at hitting him and you were sewing him up twice a day, you started leaving him behind. "He ain't  _that_ bad."

"Yeah, he is. Look at his eyes. Those are the eyes of a psychopathic serial killer. Those are the eyes you'll wake up to one night, when you feel something sharp against your chest, and they'll be the last thing you ever see when that puppet stabs you with your own katana."

You feel the hairs on your back rise as you stare into Cal's eyes. 

You blink.

You look at John's eyes, wide and innocent as he waits for your reaction.

You look back at Cal's eyes. 

"What?" John asks impatiently.

"He has your eyes."

John looks incredibly disturbed. 

"Heh."

"What?"

"Never said something that backfired, have you."

John frowns at you. "No."

You kiss him until his frown disappears. 

You work much faster with him there to keep the boredom at bay, and when Dave gets out of the shower, he comes and sits with you, tossing you a quick eyebrow quirk - his way of expressing surprise at John's presence in your room. He adds something to the conversation, though, and for a moment, you're proud. He can interrupt a conversation between two lovers and not - 

Wait.

No, no, no, not lovers. Not  _lovers_. Something else.

Fuckbuddies.

You're okay with that word.

You take yourself out of the conversation after that. 

You've finished your smuppets by nine o'clock, and head into your garage. You're not really doing anything, just screwing around, but still. 

Your garage is safe.

Until it's one in the morning, and John opens the door. "Dirk?"

"Hmm?"

"It's officially one in the morning on my last day here."

You put down your screwdriver. "Yeah." 

He sits down next to you. He looks cold. You pull off your sweatshirt and hand it to him. 

John laughs quietly as he pulls it over his head. "Bright pink?"

You grin. "Yeah. It used to have this heart-thing on it, too, but I washed it so many times it peeled off."

It's big on him, the sleeves falling past his hands, and he hunches over, stretching it tight over his back. The grin fades from his face. "See, but the thing is, I don't want to leave."

You feel like you might puke. 

"I like you. Like, your body's fucking hot, but..."

You're shaking your head already. "Dude, you've known me for, like, eight days, and a good portion of the first day was spent with pie on my face and my dick in your ass."

John grins, a far-away look in his eyes. "I did that on purpose, you know," he says casually.

" _What_?"

"The whole pie thing. I knew they were cleaning the bathrooms, and you wouldn't be able to use them, and I had just watched you come in, and..." his eyes flicker over you appreciatively. "Well, damn, you're pretty fucking hot. Obviously. At first, I mostly just wanted an excuse to stare at you for a little while longer, though. The sex was sort of accidental."

" _Sort of_?"

"Yeah. I mean, I kind of thought... but I never really  _thought_ , you know?"

You know your mouth is open. The little dick did it on purpose. He  _purposefully_ smashed  _pie_ in your  _face_. 

"Well, anyway, I definitely didn't expect you to be so  _nice_ , or _interesting_ ," he whines, staring at his hands. "I mean, I know you try to keep everything you do on the down-low, but... it's really, really cool. And you weren't all weird about it - like, you didn't ask me about my major and then shove it in my face that you're smarter than I am. And you didn't make fun of me for liking Nic Cage. Or Ghostbusters. And you weren't mean about me smashing pie in your face, either."

"I didn't know it was on  _purpose_!" You growl. 

The little shit doesn't even look guilty. "Well, yeah, but there are still people who would have cursed me out. You didn't." He's fiddling with the sleeves now, pulling them up so he can look at his skin, then pulling them back down to cover his hands. "And, well, I didn't expect to see you again after that, even though I totally should have figured it out - I mean, I'd worked out with Dave before, and he had the same scars as you did, and he wore the same shades, and he called them  _shades_ instead of  _sunglasses_ , and really, the eyes should have been enough for me to make the connection, but somehow I didn't, and maybe it was because I didn't want to, you know? I kind of... well, I didn't want to have screwed my best friend's brother, and also, I think I was worried that if I met you again, you wouldn't be as cool. Like, you wouldn't be able to keep up that level of coolness over an extended period of time, you know? And then I climbed into your stupid car, and I glance at the driver, and bam, there you are, sitting there, with fucking  _fingerless leather gloves on do you know how hot that is_ \- and your stupid shades, and Dave's all  _he doesn't like people knowing his name_ and - actually, I meant to ask you about that, do you tell all your one night stands your name?" 

He pauses, and you realize he's awaiting an actual answer. You shake your head stiffly. "No, actually."

"What do they call you, then? Bro? The Smuppetteer?"

You choke. "No. No, no no no. No, I usually just give them a fake name. I've used Jake... I've used John a couple times, actually..." You search your brain. "Those are really the only two I've used, I'll be honest."

"Why did you tell me your name?" He asks, and he looks so interested, like this is the most important thing he's ever experienced, that you can't bring yourself to lie to him. 

"I don't know."

"What'd'ya mean, you don't know?" He says in a high-pitched voice.

"I mean, I just did. You looked a little nervous, and you have really, really nice eyes -"

You see the disbelief in his eyes, and remember how self-conscious he was, and realize that that never really went away, he just learned to hide it. 

"Yeah, coming from the dude with the  _orange_ eyes, mine must be really interesting -"

"No, but seriously, they are, they're gorgeous -" You sweep the hair back from his forehead, watching his eyes flicker between yours. "They're - electric, I don't know - but, I mean, come on, how could I lie to those eyes?" You grin at the sappiness of your words. 

"See, you're doing it again!" He protests.

You blink. "Doing what? I'm pretty sure I've never complimented your eyes before."

"No, you idiot," he says, whacking you with the excess cloth at the end of his sleeve. "You're  _not being a total douche_."

"Gee, sorry. Should I try harder to be one?" You ask snarkily. 

" _Yes_!" He whines. "See, all I was really hoping for when I threw my pie in your face was for you to be in my room for a couple minutes, so I could have the chance to stare at you for a little while without other people noticing. But instead, I got laid pretty damn well, and then I got to talk to someone who was awesome and interesting and nice and who wasn't just one of those people who's nice but only talks about themselves and you were smart, and then when you left I convinced myself it was just because you were bored and had nowhere else to go and didn't see the point in being mean, and now I've spent  _six days_ with you, and you're still awesome and cool and smart and funny and -" He sighs miserably. "And now it's a problem, because before it was just kind of a thing, and now it's a  _thing_ , and how the hell am I supposed to deal with that, because after this I'm never going to see you again because  _you_ don't want to hurt Dave and  _I_ don't want to hurt Dave - yeah, I know it doesn't seem like that, but I was like hey, a few days of fun that he doesn't know about won't hurt him - but  _more than that_? That would be going too far, even  _I_ know that. So it's like the world is going, hey, here's an incredible guy who  _likes_ you back -"

"No, I don't -" You say quickly.

"Yeah, you do, people don't start saying shit about another person's eyes and making them lunch and giving them their sweatshirts if they don't like that person - and anyway, now the world is just like  _Psyche! Fuck you_! and giving me both middle fingers and that's really more than I can handle," he finishes. 

He glances up at you. 

You're staring at him. 

You should probably say something.

He's turning red.

Maybe you should just stare at him until he leaves, until the only thing he remembers when he thinks of you is embarrassment, which will turn into bitterness and maybe hatred, and will eventually, maybe, one day turn into a fond but vague memory of one time he fucked a really hot dude. It would be better for him.

But he's standing up, muttering an apology, turning away, and you can't do that to him, you can't and you won't and it's probably selfish of you but you stand and grab his shoulders and turn him around and kiss him, tasting him, toothpaste and him, and you're going to memorize his taste if it's the last thing you do, and his nose is bumping against your cheek, and judging by the way he's tugging at your pants and the way he's whining, low in his throat, there's no way you're making it to the bedroom, and you're incredibly grateful for your long history of sexual deviancy because it means that when you sit down at your work bench and pull him into your lap, you can grope around in the tool box to your left and in the bottom is a bottle of lube and two condoms. John looks at you oddly when you pull them out, but he doesn't question it, for which you're thankful - you don't particularly want to explain to him the details of your sex life. You're clean and he doesn't know anyone you had sex with - you think - so he doesn't really need to know. 

He takes the lube from you and holds it behind him and out of your reach while he fiddles with his boxers, and you press your mouth to his neck, feeling his quick pulse against your lips, as he tugs your dick out of your underwear. You hear the snap of the lube, and then his hand is wrapping around your dick and his, and he's rubbing against you, and your hand is drifting down his back and inside his pants, and you're gripping his ass as he rolls his hips against you, his head tilted to the side as you mouth at his neck, trying your hardest not to leave any marks, but it's really fucking difficult when he's moaning like that. 

You grab the lube from him and slick up your fingers, and shove them back down his pants, pushing one finger gently against his entrance, and his hips jump, and he starts rocking more fiercely before, rubbing his dick against yours at top speed, and it feels like heaven, with his hand gripping you, and you push your finger inside him and you hear his stifled groan as he tries to stay silent, and then you're finger fucking him as he rolls against you, and he grabs your hair with his free hand and pulls your face up so he can kiss you, and he kisses you like there's no tomorrow - which, actually, there kind of isn't, not for the two of you - and as you feel your stomach tightening you reach out, feeling along your table, and grab a towel just in time to cover your dicks as both of you cum in hot spurts against each other, John's face pressed into your throat as he shudders, his cry muffled by your skin when your fingers twitch inside him and you hit his prostate. 

He refuses to move, after you wipe his hand and your fingers off. "I want to sleep with you," he says determinedly. "I'll leave before Dave wakes up, I promise."

So you lift him with you when you stand, and he keeps his legs tight around your waist as you carry him to your room. When you lay down, he flatly refuses to be the little spoon. 

"You smell good. This is my last chance to ever smell you,  _ever_. I'm not passing up on that."

"I don't want to face away from you either!"

You end up with your foreheads pressed together and your fingers intertwined, your legs a tangled mess underneath the blankets.

You wake up, several hours later, when he leaves, but not enough to say anything, just enough to register the movement of the mattress, the sudden emptiness of your hands, and the light kiss on your temple before he's gone. 

When you wake up next, it's to the sound of cereal being shaken into a bowl. 

You leave a few hours later, helping John and Dave pile their bags into the car. Somehow, in spite of the fact that they came home with a bag each, they're leaving with two each, bringing back food and clothing for the slowly cooling weather. 

It's a strange reversal of the car ride a week ago: before, you were trying not to look at John; now, you're glancing in the rearview mirror as much as you can while still watching the road in front of you. The drive is way, way too short, and when you get out of the car to give Dave a hug, you go against your better judgment and hug John too. Personally, you think you're showing incredible self-control; you're not making out with him, you keep the hug short, you try to make it look more polite than like you're saying goodbye to your lover, and you think you succeed. 

Dave doesn't say anything, in any case, so you'll take it.

You don't look back as you drive away.

 

It's not until later that night, after tearing the house apart, that you realize that John took your pink sweatshirt with him.

It's not until you're falling asleep that you realize that you're okay with that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plot. Fluff. Kind of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok guys, sorry this is taking so long, but finals week is here and it's incredibly annoying and exhausting. My last final is on Thursday, though, so after that it should pick up again!

"Hey, Dave."

"Hey Bro. How're things at home?"

You push away from your sewing machine. "Not bad. I get a lot more work done, when there aren't any teenagers around. How're things at school?"

Dave has called you once a week, every week, since school started, mostly because you insisted. You didn't go through all the work of raising him just so that he could ignore you for months at a clip. He hadn't called you two days ago, which you were annoyed about, but he always said that he had the easiest schedule on Thursdays, and could fit in a phone call better, so you understand.

"I was in stats the other day and..."

He rambles on about classes for a few minutes before he lands on his history class, which he shares with John. "And of course, John's sick and can't make it to class so -"

You snort. "He got a cold and skipped class?" Your heart does something strange, managing to grow three sizes and drop through the floor at the same time. You shouldn't want to hear about him. You should be getting over him. You shouldn't have to  _get over_ him in the first place.

"Nah, dude, he's got something bad. I practically had to carry him to the health center so he could get a pass. They've banned him from going to class for a week. He can barely get out of bed. He's not even eating, and I had to convince him to drink water. I wish he could go home, but even if his dad was willing to come get him, there's no way in hell he'd be able to get on that plane - for one thing, I think he'd need clearance or something saying he's healthy, which he definitely would not get, and for another thing, he'd spend the whole time puking, the other passengers would be like  _wait I thought there was a bathroom on here_ and the flight attendants would be all  _well yeah but there's a kid puking in there so sorry you gotta hold it_ and the passengers would just be like  _but my kid's gotta pee_ and the attendants would be like  _well shit guess we gotta open a window so the kid can pee out the window ahhhhhhhhhh aw shit we're dead we shouldn't have opened the fucking window_ and -"

"I could take care of him."

Those words did not just come out of your mouth. You know they didn't. You did not just say that.

"What?"

You fucking said it and now you've gotta take responsibility for it. "It's not good for him to have no one keeping an eye on him. I could come down and get him."

Dave misses a beat, but when he speaks, he sounds relieved, not suspicious. "Oh my god, would you really, Bro you're the best, the absolute best, you make the other bros look like pieces of shit, you're fuckin' saving lives over here and everyone else is sitting on their asses doing jack shit -"

"Dave?"

"What?"

"You're going to need to tell me when I can come get him. And you're probably going to have to help him pack."

"ASAP. Just come whenever you can, okay? He's not doing well. And - um - I might not be able to help him pack. Or let you in."

"What?"

"I - kind of have a teacher's meeting in fifteen minutes. It won't be done by the time you get here, if you leave now."

"Why don't I just wait a little while?"

Dave is silent for a moment. "He's really not okay. I just left his room and I'm literally walking back to my dorm to grab my bags. I don't want him to be alone for too long."

You grab your keys and pull your sneakers on. You can feel your heart pounding. You just saw the kid nine days ago. He was fine, he was wearing your sweatshirt, energetic and happy and a complete asshole, how could he possibly be this sick? What the fuck did he have?

"Anyway, I can text my friend, she can let you into the building, and I'll text you the code to get into John's room, thank god he doesn't have a key -"

"Yeah, do that. I'm getting in the car now, so I'm going to hang up, ok?"

"Yep, that's cool, you're awesome Bro, thanks, like I'm not even kidding, I'll feel a thousand times better if I know John's not like choking on his own vomit or some shit - not that he can, he literally hasn't eaten all day, there's nothing for him to puke up -"

"Ok. Text me that code. I'll talk to you later, all right?"

"All right. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Bye, kid." 

He says bye, and you hang up, reversing out of the driveway quicker than you ever have in your life. You try to reassure yourself that John can't be that bad - if he was, they'd have hospitalized him or something, right? They wouldn't have just sent him back to his room, right? But then you realize that you don't even know if John's family has the money for that. Dave only ever talks about John's  _dad_ , never his  _mom_ , and you wonder if John was raised by a single parent who didn't have a lot of money, and if he ever had health insurance, and if he could afford to go to the hospital - 

You turn up the radio as loud as you can bear it and stop thinking about things. 

When you pull into the parking lot, you check your phone. There's a six digit code and a phone number.  _Call the number when you get there, my friend will come out and let you in._

You call it when you're standing in front of the dorm.

"Hello?" A girl answers.

"Hi. Is this Dave's friend?"

"Yeah, is this his brother?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. Are you outside the dorm?"

"Yup."

"Ok. I'll be down in a minute."

She hangs up. 

You wait.

The door opens thirty seconds later, and a girl looks around and spots you. You approach.

"Dave's brother?"

You shake her hand. "Nice to meet you. Thanks for letting me in."

"You're welcome. You're taking John, right?"

"Yeah."

"Do you have the code for his room? I don't know if he's awake or if he'll be able to make it to the door."

"I've got it."

"Do you know where his room is?"

You know exactly where it is. You've been there once and you know it like it's your room. "Yeah."

She sticks her finger in your face. "John's really sick, and he should probably be in a hospital, but he flatly refused to go. I trust Dave, so I guess you're all right, but if you hurt John..." 

The threat stands in the air. You're slightly surprised. You didn't realize people trusted Dave; you didn't realize John had such devoted friends.

You should have known, though. Dave never breaks a promise and has never been cruel a day in his life, and John had you head over heels in three hours flat. Other people must see what you see in the two of them.

"I'm here to help him, not hurt him."

"He's got a bottle of antibiotics. He takes one pill twice a day. He should take them on a full stomach; he seems to be able to handle saltine crackers pretty well."

"Have you all been taking care of him?"

"We've been taking turns. I was just in there. He was cold, so I put him in a pink sweatshirt I found under his bed, but he might be hot again, I don't know."

"All right. I've got him."

"Thanks."

She walks away in the opposite direction. 

You head towards John's room.

You punch in the code. A buzzer sounds, and you hear a click as the door unlocks.

The room is dimly lit by a lamp on John's desk, and you have to take your shades off so you can see. The room smells like sweat, and has that strange tang that rooms get when they house sick people. 

John himself is just a lump underneath a pile of blankets. You carefully lift one of the blankets, and find John's face, pale and exhausted. 

There's no way he can breathe under all those blankets. It's hot enough in the room that you don't feel bad about pulling the blankets back from his face. His eyes flicker open.

The electric blue you love is glassy, dull.

You push his hair back from his sweaty forehead. You guess he's hot again. "Hey, John," You whisper softly. "I'm taking you to my house, okay? You're gonna stay at my place until you get better. I'm just going to pack a bag for you, it doesn't look like anyone else did -"

A shaky hand emerges from the blankets, the pink sleeve of your sweatshirt falling halfway down his arm as gravity tugs at it. He touches your face and giggles - well, you think it's a giggle, anyway. "'Radia, I'm hallucinating again," He says, in a hoarse, cracking voice.

He sounds like he's dying.

You ignore that thought.

"Who's Radia?"

"Hee. Asking who you are." His hand drops. He doesn't seem to notice. 

You see tiny red spots on his throat when he opens his mouth. He's got strep throat, and apparently, he's got it bad - he's got the fever and the hallucinations, too. Dave had said he was worried about John vomiting, but adults didn't usually vomit when they had strep, and you hope that holds true for John. 

"What are you hallucinating?" How the hell are you going to move him? There's no way he can move. Can you carry him out? Is that an option? How the hell are you going to keep him comfortable in the car for the hour drive home?

Unaware of your issues, John is rambling on. You wince - how the hell he's talking, even with the mother of all sore throats, is beyond you. "It's him again, it's always him..." He's staring at you like he's memorizing you. 

"John, I'm going to pack your bags now, okay?" You rise, and he watches you. His hand grasps weakly for you. 

"Always walking away..."

"Hmm?" You throw clothing into the bag he brought to your house last time. 

"He said he was going... and he's always going..."

He sounds sad, incredibly sad, and you turn to face him. He smiles absently at you with cracked lips. Dave and the girl who let you in probably haven't been able to get him to drink much water. They're college kids, still fucking things up, still without the experience and knowledge required to keep someone hydrated. 

You drop his bag, now full of clothing and enough socks and underwear to last two weeks - you counted - and see, in the corner the lamplight can't reach, what looks like a fridge. You head towards it and - yep, that's a fridge - open it - there are three water bottles in there. You take one to John and help him sit up. He stares at you as you bring the bottle to his lips. "John, you need to drink."

He opens his mouth obediantly, and you tilt his head back a little, dripping water into his mouth, making sure he swallows. He winces with every swallow, and you wince every time he does. When you take the bottle away, he doesn't complain. 

They should have kept him at the health center, even if he wouldn't go to the hospital.

There's no way you can get him and his bag out at the same time. You study his bedside table until you see what looks like the card they use to get in the building.

There's a frantic knocking at the door.

When you open the door, the girl from before is standing there. She heaves a sigh of relief when you answer.

"Oh, thank god, I thought you might be gone already. I forgot to tell  you - his dad wanted us to check in with him every day, just so he knows how John's doing. His phone number is in John's phone under 'Dad'." She glances over your shoulder and frowns. "Is he sitting up?"

"I sat him up so I could give him water."

She bites her lip. "I tried to do that, but he was too heavy." 

"Aradia?" John says behind you.

"Yeah?"

Aradia pushes around you so John can see her. He frowns, and looks from her to you and back again. 

"Aradia? That's your name?"

"Yeah, why?"

"He thought I was someone named 'Radia'. Would that be you?"

"Yeah. Why does he look confused?"

"Because either he saw you when he looked at me, and he's now very confused as to why there are two of you, or he thought he was hallucinating because he was seeing me and he thought I was you, and now he's confused because you're here, but I haven't disappeared."

She rubs her forehead. "He's been seeing people since yesterday. He keeps saying he's seeing some guy. He won't describe him, though. Really friggin weird. Like - he's not  _allowed_ to describe this dude or something. He looks really happy whenever he thinks he's seeing him, though, so I'm not gonna yell at him or anything. How are you planning on getting him out?"

It takes your brain a moment to catch up - because wait a minute, before he was staring at you like you were going to disappear at any moment, and - has he been hallucinating  _you_? - "Um. Getting him out. I have no idea."

She purses her lips. "We could probably, I don't know, like... in movies, when two people get on either side of a guy and -" She mimes dragging him.

"No, I can carry him, but - is there any way to get my car closer? Also, I don't think I can carry him and his bag at the same time."

"Well -" A grin flashes across her face - "My class just got canceled, so I can carry his bag out if y' like. I don't think you can get your car any closer without it being illegal, though."

You sigh. "I won't get, like, arrested for carrying out a student, right? No one will think I'm abducting him or some shit, right?" 

She kneels by John's bed. "John. Johnny."

His eyes open and he looks at her. 

"Do you mind going to - uh - mister Strider's house? Do you care if he carries you?"

His eyes drift up to you. "Mmm?"

"Good enough." She stands. "Where's his bag?"

"By his closet."

She finds it and throws it over her shoulder. You push back the blankets, but - you grab on of the lighter ones there. "How many blankets does a kid need?" You mutter.

"Well, one of them's mine and one of them's Daves and I  _think_ one of them's Vriska's but I'm pretty sure that one's his, so you're all good." 

You wrap the blanket around him and lift him like a baby, reminded irrisistibly of lifting him while he was drunk. Except that that time, he ended up sleeping next to you, and this time, you're not letting him get anywhere near your bed until he's healthy enough to stop hallucinating; you see no need to get sick for the sake of spending a couple hours curled up around him.

Speaking of bedrooms, it'll probably be good for him to get out of this room - you're willing to bet that no one's opened a window since the dorm was built, and it's such a small room - you get the strange feeling that all he's doing is marinating in his own germs. 

You turn to face Aradia. "Ready?"

"Yup." She opens the door and stands back to let you through.

You maneuver through the hallways, but you don't get as many strange glances as you thought you would - for the most part, people are asking about John, is he all right, he's not dead right, is he awake, are you bringing him home, and fifty other questions that you let Aradia answer.

No one stops you on the walk from the dorm to your car, for which you're grateful; for one thing, it's not cold out but it's not hot either and you the way John's starting to shiver, he needs to be inside. For another thing, he didn't seem too heavy at first, but by the time you get to the car, your back hurts, and you remember that you're almost old.

Aradia opens the door for you and you slide him into the passenger seat, blanket and all, and buckle the seatbelt as she puts his bag in the back seat. You straighten and crack your back, and turn to face Aradia. "Thanks."

"Not a problem."

"Why are you doing this for him?" You ask before you can take half a second to remember the fierce protectiveness you felt for most of your college friends, when their lives drastically affected yours and they lived a thirty-second walk away from you.

She grins. "Well, at first it was just - y'know, help the kid out, make sure he's not dead. And then he started hallucinating. And now? I can't wait until he's healthy enough that I can _ask him_ who he was seeing." 

You laugh. It sounds slightly forced. You sincerely hope she doesn't notice. "Well, I'd better get John home - don't want him to be in a moving car for too long. Tell Dave I said hi and I'll call him later, if you see him, okay?"

"You got it," she says cheerfully, throwing you a mock salute as she walks away, moving at an unhurried pace despite the cool air.

She's wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

It's the end of october. 

She's insane.

Or a Northerner. 

You start the car and turn up the heat. John's already asleep, and for his sake, you hope he stays that way; strep throat  _hurts_ , and it's impossible to swallow, and if he can sleep through it you will not wake him up.

You spend the majority of your drive trying to decide whether it was better to speed up and get home faster or go slow so you wouldn't risk getting pulled over and wasting time. 

You do five miles over the speed limit the whole way home. 

You carry him inside and put him in the spare bed in Dave's room, and now he's stopped shivering and started sweating, and dear god it's been a long time since you had to take care of a sick person are you still supposed to put a cold wet towel on their heads or is that old-fashioned are you killing him?

But it's the only thing you know how to do, so after you bring his bag in you sit next to his bed and wipe his face with a wet towel. 

You're mopping his forehead when his eyes open. "Hey, John. How're you feeling? Do you think you can drink some water?"

His eyes flicker around and his eyebrows pull together.

"You're not in your room anymore. You're at my house, in Dave's room."

He frowns. 

"You're not hallucinating. I promise."

He reaches for you, and you grab his hand and thread your fingers through his. 

"You're sure I'm not hallucinating?" He asks. He sounds like he's on the verge of losing his voice, talking has got to be hell, but he still looks fuckin' happy. There's something wrong with him.

You grin at him. 

There's something wrong with you, too.

"No. You're not. I promise."

"And you won't be gone if I close my eyes?"

"Nope."

His eyes flutter shut. 

You wait. 

They open again, and he smiles at you. "Still here," he says under his breath.

"Still here. Go to sleep."

This time, his eyes close, and they don't open again.

You make no effort to take your hand out of his.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro does, in fact, have to call Dad.   
> John's a shitty son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick chapter mid-final-studying so I don't forget what's going on in the story, sorry it's short :/

John sleeps all day, but you have the power to adjust the temperature in his room and leave the door open and get him fresh air and water, so you're pretty sure he's better off here than he was in his dorm. 

He wakes up periodically, checking to make sure you're there before he drifts off again. You're there every time, except once, at nearly eight in the evening, when you were in the bathroom. You returned to the room to find him struggling to sit up, eyes darting around the dark room. He took a deep breath when he saw you appear in the doorway, and exhaled slowly as you moved towards him. 

"What's wrong?" 

He shook his head. "I - didn't know where I was, I forgot -" he pulled you towards him and you went, grabbing him in a hug. He buried his face in your neck, his forehead so hot he was practically burning you, and fell asleep there. 

You're searching for his phone in his bag when you hear his still-hoarse-but-almost-sort-of-getting-better voice behind you.

"Nice ass."

You straighten and turn to look at him. "It's got nothing on yours."

He winks. "We'll have to strip down and do a full examination."

"You sound a lot better," you say, trying to get into a suitable mindset for calling his dad.

"I've slept for twenty-four hours straight, I'd better be at least a little bit better. What are you looking for?"

"Your phone. I have to call your dad once a day, apparently."

Hee glances at the clock, snorts, and winces. 

"Forgot that that hurts?"

He grimaces. "Yeah. But it's ten-thirty where my dad lives."

"Yeah, well, I forgot until just now. We'll just tell him I wanted to have some progress to report."

You return to your search, digging through his bag, wiggling your ass in the air as you bend over. He laughs - or, well, he wheezes, but really, it's the same thing. 

You find his phone buried at the bottom of the bag, and carry it to him. "Here. Since you're up, you can call 'im. Probably be more reassuring to hear from his kid than from the adult pornographer taking care of his kid."

He takes the phone, but he shoots you a knowing look. "You just don't want to talk to my dad."

"Maybe you didn't understand what I said before. His kid is staying with a middle-aged guy who makes his living off of rapping robots and  _puppet pornography_. He doesn't want to hear from me."

"He literally doesn't know any of that. Also, you're thirty-three, not  _middle-aged_."

"Pretty damn close."

He rolls his eyes, but he dials his dad and puts the phone to his ear. 

Barely two seconds have passed - hardly enough time for one ring - when John's eyebrows fly up and he says, "Hi, dad - no, I'm fine - I know - I - _dad_ -" He gives up, and sits in silence as his face darkens under a cloud of fatherly anxiety. 

You turn to leave - may as well let the kid have some privacy - but John grabs your hand and glares at you.

"Dad, I - I'm - I'm not - _for fuck's sake dad -_ " 

Your eyebrows shoot up at the same time as his do, and he claps a hand over his mouth, his entire face flushing red as his eyes bulge out in horror. 

"Sorry, dad," he whispers. "It was - an accident." 

Several harsh seconds later, he starts up again. "I'm not at my dorm right now. You remember the kid I stayed with over fall break? Dave? Well, he talked to his brother and - no, not in his - well, kind of, technically - dad -  _dad_ \- I'm at Dave's house right now! Yes, his house. And yes, technically, I'm in his bedroom, but at his house, because they don't actually have a spare bedroom and - no, he's not here - I don't know - yea - ok -" He holds the phone out to you. "He wants to talk to you."

You take the phone gingerly, like there's an angry customer on the other side of it, and place it against your ear, staring at John's anxious eyes. "Mr. Egbert?"

"Mr. Strider, I take it?" Egbert's voice is deep, clipped, like he's just realized that not only is his son half a country away and sick but he's staying with a middle-aged puppet pornographer.

You've never been more aware of your occupation in your life.

"Yes, Sir."

"Why, might I ask, is my son staying at your house?"

Well, because you slept with him a couple times, and somehow, for reasons unknown and incomprehensible, sort of fell head-over-heels in love with him like the two of you are Romeo and Juliet without the murder, and you couldn't handle the thought of him being sick?

That wouldn't go over too well, though.

"Well, he stayed with me last week, and I know he's a good kid - no trouble at all - and my brother called, and sounded very worried about John, and Dave and a couple of his friends have been taking care of John since he got sick. And I remember being in college - it was stressful anyway, without worrying about a sick friend, and I know that when I was in college, I'd have been hard-pressed to take care of a kid with strep throat. I didn't want Dave or his friends to get sick, and I've been in dorm rooms -" you've been in John's, specifically - "And they're usually dirty and smelly, not the best place to get healthy again. So, all things taken into consideration, I guess he's staying with me because - well, I've got an eighteen-year-old to raise, too, and I guess if I was half a country away from him and he got sick, I'd feel better knowing he was staying with an adult than being cared for by a bunch of college kids."

John is staring at you in blatant and rather insulting shock, mouth hanging open.

Judging by the silence on the other side of the line, his father feels the same way.

"I will be perfectly honest with you, Mr. Strider," Egbert says, and his voice is much less clipped now, much more pleasantly surprised. You feel mildly guily. "I was unsure of your... motives behind bringing my son into your home, and my worries were not helped by the late hour at which you chose to call. However, knowing your reasons is - reassuring, to say the least. Although, I do have to ask - why  _did_ it take you so long to call?"

Because you were avoiding talking to him. "John's been drifting in and out of consciousness, and generally, when he woke up, he would be very disoriented; almost on the verge of a panic attack, even. I was always able to reassure him as to his location, but I didn't want to risk leaving the room to talk to you and not being there if he woke up, and I didn't want to try calling you and risk waking him up. But, as you heard for yourself, he's actually awake now, and he sounds much more like himself. He's doing much better than he was earlier -" but now his eyes are starting to close again, he probably used up what little energy he had - "And I decided to take this opportunity to call you, and let him talk to you."

"Thank you. You're quite right, it was very reassuring to hear his voice. He hasn't called often since he left, and -"

"He hasn't?" You say sharply, raising your eyebrows at John. He looks at you with confusion in his tired eyes. 

"No, I'm afraid he hasn't. So thank you. I doubt he'd have called of his own volition."

"You're welcome."

"May I talk to him again?"

"He looks like he's about to fall asleep again, but yeah, go ahead. Get a good-bye in."

"Thank you, Mr. Strider. Good bye."

"Good bye." You hand the phone to John, who takes it slowly.

"Hey, dad. Yeah, I'll try. Of course. Yeah. Yup. Okay. Bye, dad. Love you too." He hangs up.

You take the phone from him and sit. "You haven't been calling your dad?"

He looks at you. "No, not really."

"Why?"

He shrugs. "I just - didn't want to. Why, are you telling me that Dave does?"

"Once a week, every week."

He looks mildly surprised. "Oh."

You press the back of your hand to his forehead. It's not as hot as it was earlier, but it's not cool, either. 

"Are you taking my temperature?" John asks, lazily swatting your hand away.

"Yes."

"Is it good?"

"Well, it's not good, but it's certainly better."

"Oh, thank god," he says dramatically. 

"Shut up, you twat," you say, pushing him down. "Go back to sleep. You need it."

"Do I get a goodnight kiss?" He asks cheekily.

"No, you idiot, I'd get fifty different diseases." But you kiss his forehead anyway. It's probably safe to kiss him there. You hope. 

He shoots you an enigmatic look - something between exasperation, arrogance, love, and shitheadedness - before he closes his eyes. His hand finds yours, and stays there. 

You're exhausted.

The chair you're sitting in is not conducive to sleeping.

You pull your hand away from his. You are  _not_ sharing his bed. For one thing, it's a twin-sized bed, which is barely meant for one fully-grown adult, let alone two. For another thing, he's got motherfucking strep throat.

He opens his eyes and watches you as you grab Dave's bed by the frame and pull it across the rug until it's within arm's reach of John's bed. 

He's smirking at you when you turn around. "Is there any particular reason why you felt the need to put your ass in the air and walk backwards towards my face?"

You exert an enormous amount of self-control and refrain from smacking him. 

Instead, you slowly pull your shirt over your head and your pants off. 

You've never been comfortable sleeping in clothes.

John's eyes are fixated on your boxers. 

"Hey. Dude. My eyes are up here," you say, pointing at your orange eyes.

He looks at them and smiles. "Yeah, and I can actually see them, which is nice. I'm glad it's dark. It means you have to take your shades off."

You get in Dave's bed. "I always have my shades off in the house." You reach out one hand and find his.

"Yeah, but..." he shrugs. "For some reason, whenever I dream about you, or when I was hallucinating you, you were always wearing your shades." 

By the time you process precisely what he said, and the fact that he dreams about you even when he's not feverish, his eyes are closed, his breathing regular, and his fingers limp in yours. 

You swallow slowly.

You're in deep shit and you have literally no chance of pulling yourself out anymore.

And it's almost entirely your own fault. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut. A couple of Bro's thoughts. More smut. Tons and tons of smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm done with finals and home for winter break, so updates should be coming more often now.  
> Here's a long chapter to make up for the past couple really short ones.

Two days later, John's fever is down and the spots on his tongue and throat are gone. 

He could probably go back to school.

He states firmly that he still has, like, four days, and no, he is not going back to school, he is staying here and fucking your brains out. 

You remind him that you spent the last three days at his beck and call, and you have work to catch up on, because, oh yeah, you've spent three days  _not doing any of it_.

John pouts, which is absolutely adorable and entirely ignorable, even if he _is_ wearing nothing but boxers and your sweatshirt, and you sit in your room at your sewing machine for a full twenty minutes after dinner without interruption.

Of course, all good things come to an end, and you're not even remotely surprised when John appears in your doorway, whining, "Diiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk..." 

You ignore him.

"Should I call you Bro? Brooooooooo..."

You roll your eyes, before remembering that he's behind you, and cannot actually  _see_ you rolling your eyes, even if he could see behind your shades. You spin the chair around to face him. "Dude. You know my name. That's a rare fuckin' privilage."

He smirks. "I thought you didn't wear your shades inside," he says, coming towards you, moving like a fox on the hunt. A  _cute_ fox on the hunt. He puts one knee between your legs and leans against you, making him taller than you, for once in his short-kid life.

You hold his waist when you rock backwards, letting gravity push his full weight onto you, and his hand jumps to yours, an instinctual reaction to the sudden shift.

"Are you wearing gloves?" He lifts your hand. "Fingerless leather gloves. And a hat. And shades.  _Inside_. You're  _sewing_ for god's sake, what -?"

"The light hurts my eyes sometimes," you explain. "Orange eyes are really friggin' sensitive. Dave's eyes are worse."

"So...?"

"So, I need light to be on the felt, but out of my eyes. The regular light -" You nod at the ceiling light - "Doesn't hurt my eyes, but it's also behind me, and sewing when the machine is literally in my shadow is way more difficult than what I'm willing to handle. So I got a lamp, which shines the light directly on the felt, and also directly into my eyes. So I started wearing a cap, which helps a bit, but doesn't help with the reflection off the sewing machine. So I wear shades."

His eyebrows have slowly been rising as he stares at you in disbelief. "That sounds way, way more complicated than it needs to be."

"Not really, no."

He frowns. "You definitely weren't wearing the shades and the hat last time I was in here."

You shrug. "It was a good day. Some days are worse than others."

"And the gloves?"

"No explanation. Gloves are friggin' awesome."

He stares at you.

"What?"

He shakes his head. "You are so,  _so_ weird."

"And  _you're_ the one kneeling in my lap. So really, which one of us is weirder? The one who's weird, or the one who likes it?"

"The one who's weird," he answers promptly. 

You shove his face away from yours. He grabs your hand and kisses the base of your middle finger, letting the tip of his tongue trace up to the top of your finger, taking it in his mouth. 

His eyes snap up, watching you. 

"I'm literally in the middle of work, and you're trying to give my finger a blowjob with a mouth that until about twenty-four hours ago was covered in a disease? That's literally the biggest turn-off in history."

"People had sex during the plague, when having sex could kill them."

"That is  _not_ helping." You remove your hand from his and brush his hair back.

"Why do you have such an obsession with my hair? I'm not a barbie doll," John says with a snort. 

You ignore him, running your hand through his hair again, your fingers clipping his ear. You bring your hand to rest on his throat.

His pulse quickens under your fingers. 

You run your hand gently around to the back of his neck and pull him to you, but his face is currently above yours and you don't want to kiss his disease-ridden mouth anyway, so you kiss the hollow at the base of his throat, knocking your hat off in the process.

It's probably a good thing he's sitting like this. If his face was any lower down, you'd have to tilt your head to reach his throat, and your shades would probably poke his eye out. 

As you kiss your way up, following the frantic bob of his Adam's apple with the tip of your tongue, you hear his breath hitch, and he whines, "Dirk, if you stop now, I swear -"

You slip your hands under his - your - sweatshirt - which you're going to have to remember to take back before he leaves - and slide your hands up his sides, your thumbs pressing into his stomach, as you pull his sweatshirt up, slowly, as slowly as you can, keeping your lips on his throat, even when he jumps and gasp as your thumbs push over his nipples, until the very last minute, as you pull his/your sweatshirt over his head. In the moment while his face is out of your view, you admire the way his chest inflates and deflates, the way his back is arched, the body you've just been running your hands over - and then his/your sweatshirt is gone, and John is pressing against you, his thighs shaking, his dick hard through the soft cotton of his boxers as it rubs against your stomach, but the thing is, you're  _not_ hard, probably because you can't help but think  _strep throat_ every other second and it's not your fault but you  _cannot_ get it up when you're thinking about hundred-and-one degree fevers and weird spots on your tongue and not having anyone to take care of you, but there's also no way you can stop now, not with the way John's moaning and rutting against you, and you wheel the chair over half a foot to your bed and grab the lube from under the mattress as you kiss John's collarbone, pouring lube over your fingers as you lick his nipple and his fingers tangle in your hair, sliding his boxers down over his ass as his fingers tighten and his muscles spasm, pressing one finger inside his asshole as the rough leather of your glove chafes against the soft skin of his ass - 

" _Dirk please_ -" John moans as you insert a second finger.

"I think I'm just going to finger fuck you until you cum," You purr in his ear as your curve your fingers to press against his walls.

He whimpers. 

"Would you like that?" You murmur, pushing your fingers up inside him.

" _Oh god Dirk_ -" 

"Would you?" You growl, thrusting your fingers up to hit his prostate.

He jumps and cries out "YES oh  _god_ Dirk  _please fuck me fuck me fuck me_ -"

You push a third finger in and nip at his neck. John rolls his hips, one hand tangled in your hair and the other tight around your neck as he lowers himself, pushing himself onto your fingers, but that's not something you can condone because you are, in fact, wearing rather pointy shades and you will probably stab him with your  _extremely_ pointy anime shades, so you hit his prostate again, and again, until he's back on his knees, arching into you, offering the entire length of his torso to your mouth. You make good use of it, nipping and sucking until his nipples are puffy and his stomach is covered in bite marks and showing early signs of bruising. 

His legs are shaking like he's freezing, and you grab his ass and pull him firmly against you, leaning back so he doesn't have to hold himself up and can just lean against you, and he's sinking down again, bending his knees far past ninety degrees to give your fingers better access, and you respond by thrusting even faster. You want to push him into a straighter position again - get his face up above your glasses - but he's moaning deep in his throat and babbling words that you can't quite make out and you release his ass and move your hand around between you in the space he created by sitting back, and you pull his erect, dripping cock out of his boxers and smear pre-cum over the head, dragging your calloused thumb over the slit, running your leather-clad palm up and down his shaft, twisting your palm with a sharp jerk at the tip. John sobs your name and buries his face in your throat, biting down harshly to muffle his cries as he cums in your hand and all over your shirt. 

You slide your fingers out of him gently as he twitches around you. 

You wipe your hand off on your shirt. It's not like it's not already covered in cum. Because it is. It's a fucking wreck.

John doesn't have to deal with this, his body isn't even touching your shirt. 

You should have wiped your hand on his stomach.

John's breath slows down as his ass settles on your legs. 

You pull up his boxers. 

It takes you a moment to realize he's asleep.

He fell the fuck asleep. In your lap. With his head on your shoulder and his cum on your shirt. 

You sigh. You don't feel like moving him. 

So you stay there until he wakes up, an hour later, by which time you're taking the lightest catnap of your life. 

He flushes and apologizes multiple times before taking your shirt for you - although judging by the way his eyes raked up your abs, it wasn't an entirely altruistic gesture - and he doesn't appear in your room again for the rest of the night, although that might be because when you went to find him, he'd passed out in his bed in Dave's room. 

You fail to understand how he could sleep that much.

* * *

Until you find out that really, he didn't.

He's up before you the next morning, busily making pancakes and a mess of your kitchen in the way only a college kid can.

"Hey, is there a bus or something I could take to the mall?" He asks brightly.

"I could just drive you, y'know," You remind him. "I do have a car."

He shakes his head. "Yeah, but you need to get work done, remember? And I'm not really sure what I'm getting. I don't want to take up your whole day."

"How could you take up the whole day?" You ask as you take the bowl of pancake mix from his hands, effectively de-weaponizing it. "What could you possibly be looking for that it could take up the whole day?"

"I told you, I don't know," He says, as though it were obvious. 

"Do you even have the energy for that?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

You glance at him. "Well, last night, if I recall properly, you actually found yourself entirely drained of energy by, oh, six-thirty? Maybe?"

He blushes. "Well, that was kind of an intense - I don't know, sex session - what is  _that_ face for?"

Your eyebrows are halfway up your forehead, and you're sporting possibly the widest grin you've had in a while. "Well, at first it was because you thought that that was  _intense_ , but then it was because you called it a  _sex session_ -"

"Shut up. How was that  _not_ intense? Well, I mean,  _you_  couldn't get it up, but not all of us have that  _problem_ ," he says snarkily. 

"Yeah, but some of us can actually stay awake for, oh, ten fucking seconds after, like fucking adults. And what do you mean, how was that not intense? Dude, that was some of the most vanilla sex I've had in - okay, I'll admit, it was the least vanilla sex I've had since I slept with you, but  _ignoring_ that - damn, kid. I run a puppet porn website and you really think that fingerfucking is the most intense thing I've ever done?"

He looks mildly offended, and doesn't answer for a moment, his brows creasing. 

You turn back to the pancake mix.

"Wait," he says slowly. "Since you slept with me? Which time? Are we talking, like, fall break? Yesterday? When?"

Shit. "Um. No. Since. Parent's weekend?"

You hear his chair squeak. You're mildly afraid to turn around. 

"And about how often, would you say -" Oh god he's using his devilish voice and he's  _getting closer_ \- "Did you used to have sex?"

"Ah. Every so often."

His hands snake around your waist. "Meaning?"

"Meaning about every weekend at the very least, and no, I haven't had sex with anyone other than you since parent's weekend, and yes, that probably has quite a bit to do with you, and yeah, you're still probably the best lay I've ever had, and yeah, you mean a lot more to me than just sex. Did I hit everything?"

He giggles. "No, you didn't hit  _one_ thing."

You frown, thinking through all the possible questions he might have had. "What'd I miss?"

You feel his body rub against yours as he pushes himself up onto his tiptoes so his mouth is below your ear.

He whispers, " _My ass_."

You turn, faster than he anticipated, dishrag in hand, and even as he tries to dance out of your reach, he makes the mistake of turning his back to you, and you whip his ass with the towel. 

He yelps and laughs. "So. Bus to the mall?"

"Down the street. Costs six bucks each way."

" _Wonderful_."

You choose to ignore the mischievous tone to his voice, in favor of flipping the three pancakes in the pan. 

John leaves right after breakfast, waving goodbye as he cheerfully left the house and cruelly left you with your work and your thoughts.

Last time he was here, you both knew that it was the end, the last time either of you would ever see each other. You made that very clear, and he agreed with you. 

And then the second you heard his name, you ran to him, like he was Thor and you were Mjolner. 

This time, there's been little to no talk of leaving, except in terms of the inevitable - John would have to go back to school in a few days, of course. But neither of you have said a word about how this was the last time, or how after this it was all over, or how after this you'd have to forget about each other. 

You'd shown that, at the slightest sign that he was in trouble, you would drop everything and run to him, would sit with him for days to make sure he was all right, regardless of anything you said to the contrary.

He thought about you so much, he had hallucinations of you when he was sick and dreams about you when he was healthy.

You're a shitty brother and you can't bring yourself to do anything about it. 

If either of you could stop thinking about the other, this could end. 

But it's not ending. 

You feel your lips curl up into a peaceful smile as you think about John, about his sarcasm and his ability to talk for half an hour straight about a single movie and the sounds he makes when you thrust into him and the way he giggles at the thought of a future prank and -

And you're in way too deep to get out now. 

You put down the smuppet you're working on as you realize you need to change the spool of thread. You stand, slowly, muscles moving smoothly as a well-oiled machine, and you stand still for a moment, cracking your neck.

You always feel human until you start having emotions. 

As soon as you start thinking about painful things, difficult things, things entirely out of your control, you begin to feel strangely robotic. Every muscle is a metal part, a single cog in an enormous machine that you do your utmost to take care of. Your thoughts feel like scrambled computer coding, out of order and only able to give an error message. 

You take a deep breath, and your lungs expand and contract, and oxygen flows through your veins, bringing it where it needs to go. You close your eyes, blocking out what little light was making its way through your shades, and a minor headache you didn't even know you had disappears. You raise your arms above your head and lean backwards, feeling your muscles stretch and loosen, like rubber bands on the trial robots you made when you were twelve. 

You've never been one to meditate, but you've always liked the concept of understanding your own body, and for one second, just one, you are at peace, the energy inherent in your body the same as the energy thrumming in your mind.

And then you open your eyes and look at your thread box.

"Fuck." 

Out of orange. 

You could leave this one for later, work on something else while you have the house to yourself.

But you don't particularly want to leave John alone. You have a strong feeling that, if he were left alone in your house, you'd come home to find that everything had burned to ashes because he'd tried to make himself a salad. 

Or you'd walk through the door to a bucket of water thrown at your head. 

One or the other. 

And you need more felt and other threads, anyway, and there's no time like the present, so a trip to the craft store it is.

You shoot off a text to John, telling him not to bother rushing home, because you weren't there anyway and probably wouldn't be back for at least an hour. 

You're stopped at a red light when your phone buzzes again. You glance down.

_Take your time!_

The text is strangely foreboding. 

You take your time anyway. The craft store is one of your favorite places, and you're a well-known customer, although no one's figured out what you make with all the material yet. You should probably start ordering in bulk, but it takes time to make smuppets, and if you ordered in bulk you'd end up with about five hundred yards of felt sitting in your garage for three months, taking up space and getting in your way. 

You pick up pizza on the way home. 

The living room is empty, the house silent, and you drop the pizza on the counter and carry your bags into your room.

You stop dead in the doorway.

Your mouth goes dry. 

"J-John?"

He looks up innocently from under his eyelashes. "Did you just stutter, Dirk?"

You can't even care about that right now. You can't even  _breathe_ right now.

He's lying on your bed, wearing pink thigh-highs topped with lace and a matching corset that clutches his ribs and outlines his body like the thing was sewn onto him.

You know you're gaping and you know it ain't cool but holy christ on a cracker you do  _not_ give a shit, the kid deserves to know that he's left you dumbstruck. 

He looks at you with wide eyes. "What's wrong, Dirk?" And the way he says your name sounds like the sexiest thing you've ever heard, and he brings his fingers up to his mouth like he's anxious. "Do you not like it?" He begins biting his nails, but he's not fucking biting his nails. He's sucking on the tips of his fingers.

Jesus christ.

And then John pouts and rolls over, hiding his erection but showcasing his ass, and he's propping himself up on his elbows, accentuating the dip in his lower back and emphasizing the fact that his ass is the hottest thing you have ever seen in your entire godforsaken life, and you realize you're being a douchebag, just fucking standing here and staring when John - 18-year-old Ultra-Twink - just marched into a Texan mall and bought that lingerie - and you know he did, because you sure as hell didn't pack it for 'im - and it probably took a fuckload of courage to buy it and then wear it without knowing what you like and  _you still aren't doing anything, how in all holy hell are you managing to keep your hands off of him when he fucking wrapped himself up like a present and deposited himself in your bed_ -

You set your bags down.

John tries and fails to hide the flash of triumph in his eyes as he starts to roll over.

"Nope, stay on your stomach."

He looks mildly confused.

You remove your shades so that he can see the triumph in your eyes, because you are in control again, and you fully plan on doing something about those feelings he's been having - like he's beaten you. 

He's 18 years old, and this is the kinkiest thing he's ever done.

You're 33, and this is barely brushing the surface of what you enjoy. If your kinks were buried, archeologists would have to work for centuries to find the bottom of that pile. 

You approach the bed, and when you kneel on it, you wrap an arm around John's waist, pulling his ass into the air, and it is a beautiful sight.

You press your lips to his soft skin, taking your time to worship the beautiful body before you, running your hands down his legs to feel where his skin ends and the lace begins, avoiding his erection and swatting his hands away whenever he reaches for it. 

Eventually, you reverently spread his asscheeks and rub circles around his entrance with your tongue, pressing down gently with your hands to keep him from pushing up against you. 

He whimpers when you push your tongue inside him. 

 Several minutes later, he's screaming into the pillow, his body bucking as though he can't decide on the best position, his fingers twisting around the sheets.

You pull your face away to admire the mess you've made of him. 

He shrieks incomprehensibly. You assume he's yelling at you for backing off. 

You consider spanking him for that.

But no, your fondness for bondage and BDSM might take some explaining, and you'd rather save that conversation for another day.

So instead, you tell him to calm down as you pull your shirt off and cover three of your fingers with lube, stretching him out as you pull your pants off with your free hand. 

He's clenching around you like he's trying to hold your finger inside him.

You tell him to relax, planting a kiss on his thigh above the lacy tights. "I'd like my dick to fit in your ass without ripping it open," you whisper against his skin.

Goosebumps flare up along the entire length of his body, and he shudders, but slowly, slowly, relaxes the ring of muscle around your fingers. 

You find yourself stroking your cock idly as you watch your fingers stroking in and out of him, listening to the whines and moans and whimpers that escape his mouth, muffled by his pillow the way the sweetest piano music is muffled when played on a baby grand piano with the lid down. 

Finally, when your fingers are slipping out of him and his words have arranged themselves into sentences such as " _So help me god Dirk if you do not put your dick in me right now_ ," you pull your fingers out, wiping them on John's thigh before putting on a condom, and you line your dick up with his slick asshole, pushing in slowly -

But John, apparently, is no longer okay with slow, and he shoves himself back on your dick with a gasp and a muffled sob.

God, you are going to have to get this kid tied up. Powerless, unable to shove against you, forced to take it as slow or as fast as you want him to -

But not today. Today, you let him set the pace, which is fast, and because he's setting the pace, you decide that you deserve some form of control, and you find yourself gripping his hips, your fingers digging into his hipbones and your thumb digging into his back where it meets his ass. You bend over him, kissing him between the laces of his gorgeous, gorgeous corset, and as he slams his rear into you, you find yourself whispering about how beautiful he is, how incredible he is, how much you love him, and -

Shit, you said you loved him, and he heard you, he did, he lost his rhythm, but you can't bring yourself to care because he's impaling himself on you now like he couldn't slow down to save his life, and you lose your grip on one of his hips and instead of trying to get it back you find his dick, stroking him until he cums, screaming wordlessly into the pillow, squeezing you and rippling and shuddering around you until you cum mere seconds after he does, stars floating in front of your eyes as you stop breathing for a moment.

Several minutes later, after John divested himself of the corset with a grumble of "Fucking uncomfortable,  _how_ women used to wear them - without even getting a rimjob to make up for it - I'll never know," you're spooning him, nearly dozing with your lips in his hair and your nose full of his scent and your body pressed against his, when he decides to open his mouth.

"You said you loved me."

"Mmm?"

"You said it, and I want to know if you meant it, or if you were just saying it because I'm a good fuck."

He says it demandingly, as would one who was used to getting the answers he asked for, and you would love to deny him something some day, just for the sake of seeing how angry he'd get, but fuck it, today ain't the day for that.

You sigh into his hair. 

He tenses.

He's waiting for you to tell him that it's a complicated question, or that it doesn't matter because he's still Dave's best friend, or that he's just that good in bed, but who the fuck are you to lie to him? You're the one who ran to him when he got sick, not the other way around. You're the one who wants him around, who would rather drive him to the mall - something you hardly ever did for Dave - than sit at home and let him do all the work. "Nah, kid, I think I might really love you. As shitty a situation as that is."

He relaxes and threads his fingers through yours. "Oh well."

You wish you could share his optimism. 

You choose to ignore the future in favor of the feeling of your hand trapped between his stomach and his own hand.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plot development. Almost. Pre-plot development.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it turns out I was wrong in thirty different ways when I said that I'd have more free time during christmas break  
> sorry about that

"You _let_ me sit here."

"No, no, I don't think I did."

"Yeah, you did."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did." 

You sound like children. And maybe he's still young enough to fall under that label, but you sure as hell ain't. 

You scoop him up and sit down in your now-vacant desk chair.

John squirms around in your lap until he's comfortable and you're thinking about large mustaches - your one and only turn-off - to prevent a boner. You have work to do, after all.

You end up working around him. He reminds you oddly of a cat, sitting in your way and forcing you to pay attention to him even as you work around him, editing the videos you took and uploading them to your website. 

"How did you explain your puppets to Dave?"

"Well, he didn't really ask about them until he was around four years old, and even then it was mostly to ask why I videotaped them. After that, he ignored them until he was around eight, by which point he realized that they looked a lot like dicks, and he wanted to know why. I never really bothered evading his questions. He got The Talk by the time he was nine."

"Isn't that kind of young to talk to kids about sex?"

"Well, he's at school getting good grades and calling me once a week - once every other day, since I brought you here - and you're sitting in the lap of a man who's fifteen years older than you are and you've spoken to your dad more times in the past week than you have since you flew out here. So I'd say the age at which kids learn about sex has little to nothing to do with how they grow up."

He glares at you. "Are you trying to guilt trip me?"

"Maybe. Why don't you call your dad? Is he abusive or something? Is there something I'm missing here?"

He squirms uncomfortably. 

You take deep breaths and think about handlebar mustasches.

"No, not really, it's just..." He leans back against you. "He's always been so... I don't know, like, he's not even a  _person_ , he's just a  _dad_ , he's just there and he does dadly things and he used to be pretty cool when I was little? But when I hit, like, thirteen years old, he just pulled back a little. It's like - he was weirdly overprotective, and then he suddenly decided to cease existing so I could live my life unhindered, or some bullshit like that. I just - I don't even know what I'd  _talk_ to him about. Like - 'oh, yeah, well, the other day I was sitting in my english class and I wasn't really paying attention, I was thinking about this dude who's nearly twice my age. And then I started dreaming about him - he's just so  _dreamy_!'" He bats his eyelashes at you as you laugh. "Seriously, though. What do _you_ say to your dad?"

You shrug. "I barely speak to my parents. I know who they are - I was kind of shoved around the foster system when I was younger, but I always knew who they were. And when they produced Dave, I grabbed him and wouldn't let them separate us. I literally raised the kid, like he was really my son instead of my brother. And as soon as I turned eighteen and they kicked me out of the system, I took Dave and ran as far as I could from them. Haven't seen or heard from them since. They might not even be alive anymore. I don't know that anyone would tell me."

"How did you get the money for that?" John asks incredulously.

"When I got Dave, I started making puppet porn. Three years later, I had enough money to move into a mansion and have three live-in maids. Money wasn't an issue."

"How did you even get the  _idea_ to make puppet porn? Did your foster parents really let you make it? Why are you living in this tiny house if you have the money for a mansion?" The questions tumble out of his mouth, one on top of the other, as though he can't figure out which one to ask first. You can't blame him. You don't exactly lead a normal lifestyle.

"Well, sex dolls were really expensive and also a little weird-looking and pretty big and bulky and difficult to hide. And everyone always talks about how anything can be turned into a kink. So I saved up my allowance for a few months, bought some felt and cotton stuffing, borrowed some thread from my then-foster mom, made a couple smuppets, and started making puppet porn videos. At first, I just had ads on the site, and then I realized that people were actually willing to pay for this shit, so I started posting clips of the videos and making people pay to see the full thing. And they did. We're not living in a big house because, for one thing, I was going to college and didn't want to risk throwing too much money into a house that I wouldn't be able to finish college, and because what the fuck would I do with a big house?"

"You went to college?"

"Yeah."

His eyes widen in shock. "What'd you major in?"

"Mechanical engineering and computer programming."

John's mouth falls open. You're forced to wait several seconds before he says: "You... you're  _smart_!"

"Gee, thanks," you say dryly. "I'm glad I surprised you with the fact that I have a brain."

"Well -" He flushes. "No, but - I don't know, I kind of - didn't realize you went to college, and I - you don't seem like the type to sit through classes and do homework and dress appropriately and shit and - I guess -"

You snort. "I managed to teach myself most of what I know about robotics, but there was a ton of shit I needed a teacher for, so yeah, I got through college."

"What was your GPA?"

"Any year in particular, or cumulative?

"You remember what you got for every year?"

"No."

John rolls his eyes. "Cumulative."

"4.0."

You take advantage of John's lengthy silence to check your email. 

"Are... are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"You... holy shit, Dirk. You're a genius."

"Nah, just really interested in things that people consider 'smart'. Dave's a genius too, but no one ever tells him that, because he's into English and film production instead of math."

"No, no, I knew Dave was smart - his vocabulary makes mine look nonexistant - but - I don't know. Dave's not exactly humble. I mean, he tries to hide it under five minutes worth of words, but he usually ends up throwing in more big words that he doesn't realize are big, and just makes him sound smarter. But - I mean - I've seen your robots, I knew you weren't  _stupid_ , but -"

"But, you didn't realize that I was smart in terms of grades, too."

"Uh - yeah." He's blushing bright red, and you've never been one to humiliate someone, so you let it go. 

One of your customers is asking for a specialty order - a double-size smuppet with a very specific dildo in the nose. You email him back with a price. He's a regular and he's never once been put off by a high price. You have no fear that he'll tell you to go ahead. 

John still looks absolutely miserable. 

"Hey, it ain't your fault. I don't exactly look like the Ideal College Graduate." You glance at him over the tops of your shades. "I generally do my best to seem like a shady high-school drop-out drug dealer. People don't talk to me when I look like that." You frown. "Except you. You did."

John laughs. "That... that's actually a perfect description of what you looked like." He sobers. "It was still a stupid conclusion to draw, though."

"Yeah, it was. Didn't stop you approaching me, though."

He shrugs. "You don't give your ass enough credit. It draws the gaze." He mimes being pulled towards something. "It was like a magnet."

You snort. "What am I going to do when you're not around anymore, with no one to charm me?"

He waggles his eyes at you. "I don't suppose you have a skype?"

"Of course I've got a skype."

He leans forward, blocking your view of the computer screen. You lean your forehead against his bony back and close your eyes, feeling his back stretch as his arm moves, presumably adding him to your list of skype contacts. 

"There. Now you can talk to me even after I go back to college." He sits back, nearly tearing his back open against your shades.

"Exchanging cell phone numbers would probably have made things easier," you point out.

"Well, I can't see you over a cell phone, can I," he asks snottily.

You kiss the base of his neck. "All right. Skype works."

* * *

John skypes you at least three times a week. 

Three times out of five, he calls you late at night and passes out mid-call. You don't mind. You like watching his eyes drift shut. 

You like his goofy smile when the camera kicks in and you appear on his screen.

You like the flush of pleasure that spreads across his cheeks when you tell him you love him before ending the call.

You're not so big on the way your body relaxes when you hear his voice, because it means that when the call ends, you tense up again, alone in your empty house, alone in your empty bed. 

You consider going to a bar. Bringing someone home. You have the house to yourself. There's no reason to be quiet.

You go to a bar.

You end up declining a night with the very good-looking androgynous person you'd been sitting next to. 

It might be the first time in your life you've ever done such a thing.

But somehow, you can't picture yourself lying next to anyone else anymore. You don't like the thought of a stranger's voice in your house.

John's voice is a relief, at the end of silent days. 

It's not a good thing.

You often remind yourself that he's fifteen years younger than you are, that he's your brother's best friend, that he's got three and a half years of college ahead of him, that in all likelihood he'll find someone his age and leave you. 

It doesn't help much. 

His calls are still the highlight of your day. Excepting the days Dave calls, of course. You're an awful brother, but you're still glad to know he's all right.

Until. 

"So. Uh. Dirk."

"Why do you sound nervous?"

"I'm not."

You raise your eyebrows. John stares you down. 

His defiant expression wavers.

And falls.

"Ok. Fine. Maybe I'm a little nervous."

"Why?"

"Um... what are you doing for Thanksgiving?"

"If you ask to stay at my house for Thanksgiving vacation, I am personally going to drag you up to wherever the fuck you live so your poor father gets to see you."

"No, uh. That's. Kind of the thing. Well. No. It's not."

You watch bemusedly as his eyes flicker around, avoiding yours and generally landing on his hands, where one hand is trying its best to pick the other to pieces.

Your phone rings. 

"Hello?"

"Hey, Bro."

"Hi, Dave."

John's eyes snap up to meet yours in abject horror. 

"So John was talking to his dad about flying home for Thanksgiving break, and his dad invited the two of us to stay there for the break. We wouldn't be home for Thanksgiving, but we'd be in New York, and I mean, come on, who  _doesn't_ want to be in New York for Thanksgiving?" 

He's nervous too. He's not rambling.

"Stay with John and his dad for Thanksgiving?" You clarify, mostly so John knows what's going on. 

John drops his head to the desk.

"Why are you so nervous?"

"What'd'you mean, nervous?" His accent is coming out. He has a stronger accent than you - you already had a Jersey accent before you moved down here. He was too young to have picked up the accent before you moved, but he always tried to mimic your accent, and usually managed it pretty well. 

"You just asked me a question. Without any extraneous words or metaphors. You're nervous."

"I just - didn't know how you'd take it. How are you taking it?"

"I think I like the idea."

"What? Really?" You've never heard Dave sound so surprised in your life. 

John lifts his head off his desk to stare at you in shock.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Well - I mean - you've kind of avoided going up North for as long as I can remember? And you're not a big fan of crowds? And you're kind of a homebody, I mean, don't get me wrong, you're awesome, but like, home is where you always are, I know you're more comfortable there -"

"New Jersey isn't the only state up North, and New York City doesn't make up all of New York. Hell, there's a good portion of New York that's just  _farms_. Yeah, I say we go. Hell, we'll fly up there with John. Go ask him if he's bought his ticket yet. If he hasn't, I'll pay for his."

"Oh, uh - I'll text him." 

You hear nothing for a moment, and then Dave says, "Ok, I texted him," and you hear John's phone go off. You motion for John to answer, and the absurdity of the situation hits you: you're talking to Dave and John; Dave has no idea you're talking to John, whom he's texting; you're asking Dave to ask John questions, instead of just asking John directly, despite the fact that you're currently staring straight at him.

You bite back a laugh.

John puts down his phone and nods at you.

Dave's phone goes off in your ear.

"John says his dad hasn't bought tickets yet."

"Great, well, text him and tell him not to. What day are we flying over?"

Dave gives you the details of his thanksgiving break as you pick through airlines, hunting down the only direct flight from Housten to the JFK airport. "Should we go first class? I'm thinking we'll go first class."

" _What_?" Dave yells. "Bro - you're fucking  _awesome_!"

John's expression of horror is back.

"Well, hey. Only the best for the porn star, right?"

"The porn star?"

"Me."

Dave snorts. "Oh. Right. Dude, you're  _sure_ you're okay with first class? We could totally do - whatever's below that -"

You frown. "You don't remember flying down here, do you."

"When I was three? No. No, I do not remember that." You can practically hear him rolling his eyes.

"So this is basically your first time flying, isn't it."

"Yeah, kinda."

"Yeah, we're flying first class. Tell John to give me his information. Phone number, email address, home address -"

"Texting him now."

Twenty minutes later, you've got John's details and three first-class round-trip tickets to and from New York.

Dave hasn't stopped yelling. You've put him on speaker and set the phone on the desk to save your ears.

You have John on mute so he could call his dad. You watched him turn bright red and wave his hands around for a full ten minutes without a single word of explanation. 

When Dave hangs up, he's still thanking you. You turn the volume back up on the computer just in time for John's phone to ring.

He answers, and Dave screams something unintelligible so loudly that you can hear it.

You listen as he and Dave excitedly discuss their upcoming vacation, John smiling idiotically at you the whole time. 

When Dave hangs up, John grins at you.

And then his grin slides off his face.

"What?"

"My dad's a light sleeper."

You snort. "So what, we can't have sex?"

John shakes his head.

"So what?"

"So, I..." John frowns.

"What, you only love me for my body?"

He glares at you. "No, but..."

"You're horny."

"Maybe."

You grin. "Sucks to be you!"

" _Dirk_!" He whines. "I'm serious! I'm not just talking about -  _that_ , I'm talking about - what's so funny?"

"Are you really not willing to say the word 'sex'?"

"Shut up. I'm trying to be serious here. We can't keep this a secret forever. And, like, I was  _kinda_ hoping it could stay a secret for a little while longer, but we're not even going to be in your house, we're going to be in mine, and we're going to be with Dave and my dad the whole time and - and I miss you," he finishes, blushing. "For real. I'd be okay with just sitting next to you, and that's probably not even going to happen, and -" He drops his face into his hands.

"John?"

"Mmm?" He doesn't lift his face out of his hands.

You almost reach out to pull his face up before you remember that you can't actually put your hand through the computer screen and touch him. "I think you're making a bigger deal of this than it actually is."

He lifts his face to stare at you incredulously. "If you tell me I'm just a stupid overemotional teenager -"

"No. I'm saying that you're looking at this like it's the worst thing that could ever happen, and it's still two weeks away. We've already gotten lucky -"

"Is that an innuendo?"

"No, it's me pointing out the fact that you waited until two weeks before thanksgiving to buy your ticket, and we not only found one, we found  _three_. That's fucking incredible. So maybe we've got luck on our side, or some shit. So what if we can't sleep together? We'll be what, a room away? Still closer than we are now. It'll be fine." _  
_

You grin at him, and he smiles back.

"Why does your hand keep twitching?"

You shrug. "I guess I'm getting old. Getting the shakes."

"You're thirty-three."

"Old and shakey."

"Lying."

"Why would I lie to you?"

He frowns. "Because you're getting emotional or scared and don't want me to know?"

Damn. 

He grins. "I'm right, aren't I."

You grimace. "I keep going to reach for you and remembering there's a fuckin' computer screen in the way."

John laughs. "So much for the genius computer programmer, huh?"

"Fuck off."

"If y' like," John drawls with an exaggerated Texan accent.

He talks in a Texan accent for twenty minutes, waggling his eyebrows like he's being cool. 

When he hangs up, you push away from your desk and sit there.

He's right. You really can't keep this a secret forever. 

Dave's gonna beat you to a pulp.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Dad Egbert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that my family is somehow more demanding than a full college course load. Thank you for the kudos; they gave me the energy to stay up late writing this instead of just leaving it until I have free time.

There's no surprised pause, this time, when John gets in your car.

It's exactly the opposite, if anything.

John and Dave practically leap into your car, vibrating with the excitement of being on break. Dave is talking before he even gets in the car.

"Yo, Bro, guess how much homework I have? It's fuckin' incredible, you could search through the depths of the fuckin' seven seas and not find anything this damn preposterous, the amount of homework I have is outlandish, literally out of this land, I mean you could leave this whole fuckin' planet and not -"

"Three papers and a group project?"

"No, asshole, I have  _no_ homework, none, zip zero zilch nada  _none_ at all."

"Asshole?"

"You didn't let me finish."

John snorts. "If he let you finish your sentence, you'd have been speaking until the goddamn  _plane_ landed."

"I do  _not_ talk that much, I -"

He falls silent.

You glance back, searching for the reason behind his sudden silence, but John is looking around just as quizzically as you are.

You blink.

"Dave. Are you... are you proving that you don't talk that much?"

He nods. 

John chokes and breaks into hysterical laughter. 

You can't help the grin that flashes across your face. It's been a long time since you heard his laugh in person.

"What? You yell at me for talking and then laugh at me -"

John interrupts. "So, Bro, how is -"

"Did you just interrupt me mid-sentence -" Dave asks disbelievingly.

"Your smuppet business doing?" John finishes, not even sparing Dave a glance

"You son of a fuck -"

"It's going pretty damn well, actually -" you answer casually.

"Bro, don't you dare go along with this fucker -"

"I got to put a tentacle dick on one of them the other day."

Dave glares at you. "Bro I fucking detest you ok -"

"How much did you mark up the price?" John asks, his eyes sparkling at yours in the mirror. 

"John I'm going to stab you -"

"I didn't, actually -" you answer over Dave.

" _You both can go suck a dick_ -"

"Really? Why not?" John's eyebrows quirk upwards.

" _Because he's a fuck-up_ -"

"It took nearly the same amount of cloth -" you explain.

" _Augh_ -" Dave yells in frustration.

"And I ain't a douchebag."

"This is a fuckin' conspiracy against me -" he rants.

"Dude, you lived up north for most of your life -"

"This makes the JFK conspiracies seem like nothing -"

"You can  _not_ tell me you were raised saying 'ain't'."

"Forget the grassy knoll, this is the traitor of a brother -"

"I still lived down here for eighteen years."

"Makin' the second shooter look irrelevant -"

 John slaps his hand over Dave's mouth, grinning, and opens his mouth to say something.

His face twists into an expression of pure horror and he pulls his hand away so quickly that for a second, you worry that it vanished. Dave scrunches up his forehead, opening and closing his mouth like a fish as he sticks his tongue out like he's eaten earwax, and suddenly, you understand. " _Did you just lick John's hand_?"

John nods, his facial expression morphing into a strange mixture of horror and amusement as Dave makes soft " _Pluh, pluh"_ noises.

"If you spit in my car I will kick you out of it."

Dave pulls down his glasses so you can see him glaring at you.

"What?"

"Bro, as soon as you're done driving, I'm going to kick  _you_ into next week."

"Incredible. That's the shortest sentence you've spoken since you read the dictionary the first time."

John laughs. "Yes. Because Dave read the dictionary. More that once."

"John?"

"What?"

"He did."

John's eyes flicker between you and Dave, like he's waiting for Dave to roll his eyes at you, or for you to laugh at him for believing you. When neither of you contradict your statement, his eyes widen. "Shit, you really -  _really_?"

Dave smirks at him. "Yeah. What, you didn't think I was smart?"

"Well, no, I - well - no, but -  _Jesus Dirk will you stop looking at me like that_ -"

"I'm wearing my shades, there's no way in hell you can even tell where I'm looking in the first place -"

"You know his name?" Dave glances between the two of you, like you've both transformed into enormous green monsters right in front of his eyes.

"Yeah, Roxy called while he was at our house getting better, and I had her on speaker. He overheard. Thought my name was 'Dirky' at first. I corrected  _that_ pretty fuckin' quick."

Dave nods, curiosity assuaged. "Ah."

John looks at you in awe, like you came up with that lie on the spot, but you've been thinking about what you'd say if John accidentally called you Dirk for a long time. 

"Anyway, you thought I was stupid because...?" Dave picks up, as though John never said anything strange.

They bicker like children the entire ride to the airport.

You won't lie. It was very entertaining.

And quite frankly, it was good to hear their voices again, in real life as opposed to over skype or a phone. 

Of course, you couldn't help but feel guilty as you listened to them - John is Dave's best friend, and you're pretty sure the friendship is reciprocated. 

When you tell Dave - and it's gotta happen soon - he's going to _hate_ you. 

He's going to hate you  _and_ John, of course, but mostly you. 

And he's right to. You're taking his friend, stealing him, and going behind his back to do so.

Of course, John isn't entirely innocent - if anything, he's to blame for the whole fuckin' thing, throwing pie in your face and coming to you over fall break. 

But you're older. You should know better, should have better self-control. Should have tried harder.

Now, though, it's too late. John's eyes glow when he looks at you, and you're hardly any less sappy - you've gotten emotional as you aged. 

Well, not really. 

Just with John.

They quiet down in the airport, Dave's nerves starting to kick in and John considering his imminent reunion with his dad. You try to keep their minds off of their respective worries, forcing them to talk about their classes instead, but that topic dries up in about five minutes flat - school is literally the shittiest thing to talk about - and not a single one of the other sixteen topics you bring up lasts for more than a minute or two. Even Nic Cage only gets the hint of a smile from John. 

So you settle into silence, all three of you, as you pad barefoot through security and haul your luggage through the airport and sit, John between the two of you, waiting to board the plane.

All three of you stare down at your phones, either unwilling or unable to talk, until Dave gets up with a muttered "bathroom" and heads towards the one you passed on the way to your terminal.

John's head falls onto your shoulder. "I don't want to go home," he whines.

"I can tell. You won't even talk about Nic Cage."

He just sighs.

"What's the problem? Okay, so your dad's a little boring, so what. According to you, he cooks like a master chef and he ain't abusive, so what's wrong?"

John closes his eyes. "He doesn't know I'm gay," he mutters. "And he's so traditional - I mean, you've spoken to him, he doesn't even ask for your damn  _name_ , he just calls you 'Mr. Strider.' When I told him I didn't want to go to senior prom he looked at me like I wasn't human. Before I left for college, he had at least fifty conversations with me on treating women with respect, especially when you're dating them, and on the importance of meeting a girl's family, and how excited he was that I had a chance to meet some new females because I  _clearly_  didn't like any of the ones in my high school. How the hell am I ever supposed to tell him  _I'm gay_? 'Hi, dad, I'm gay and dating a thirty-three year old man. How did I meet him? I practically dragged him back to my dorm within ten minutes of seeing him for the first time and screwed him.' Yeah, that'll go down well." His voice rises a little, betraying his panic.

You don't know what to tell him. 

You were never worried about coming out to anyone as pansexual. You never particularly cared what your parents - real or foster - thought, by the time you were ten you were willing to take on anyone who made fun of you, and by the time you were twelve you were able to beat absolutely anyone to a pulp. Your sexuality was never something you had a problem with. Who you dated never mattered.

You end up stroking his hair until you see Dave's red sweatshirt appear through the crowd.

John sits up and returns to his phone.

A flood of people bursts through the doors. "The plane's here."

Dave stiffens, staring out the window. His phone dims and shuts off. He doesn't notice.

"Yo. Dave."

He jumps and looks at you.

"You all right?"

He nods.

He's lying.

You google Bernoulli's principle and find a wikipedia article on it. You text him the link.

He jumps again when his phone buzzes, but he reads it. He's smart. Maybe knowing how planes fly, how they stay up in the air, will help him. 

It doesn't seem to do much. 

He's looking mildly nauseous by the time you board the plane.

You're mildly disappointed that this airline's version of first class is just wider seats and better food, instead of reclining chairs and the leg space of a living room couch. 

Dave promptly sits in the aisle seat, puts on his headphones, puts his head back, and closes his eyes.

You take the window seat. John sits between you and Dave again.

"Is he asleep?"

You shake your head. "Nah, look at 'is hands."

"What about them?"

"His fingers are flat."

"They're on his lap."

"Doesn't matter. He flatly refuses to sleep with his fingers flat. If he has to change positions in order to curl his fingers, he will. I have no idea why he does it, but he's been doing it since he was born."

"Aw."

"Some woman in a grocery store told me it was abnormal and I spent the rest of the week worrying that he'd have finger problems his whole life."

"Really? I can't picture you being worried."

"I heard you were sick and drove all the way down to your college to bring you back to my house to make sure you wouldn't die."

He bites his lip. "Ok, but you're not - like - you don't talk about being worried. You just - do shit."

"Maybe you should ask Dave to rewrite that sentence for you. Maybe he can make it make sense."

"Fuck you."

"You can, if you'd like," you say, lowering your voice so only he can hear it.

"I'll have to take you up on that at a different time, we're in public and I've never been big on exhibitionism."

"Shame."

"Yeah, I wish the plane was empty too."

"No, shame that you're not into exhibitionism."

"Oh, and you are?"

"Yeah."

He looks at you, and a flush begins to creep up his cheeks. 

You waggle your eyebrows. 

He appears to be having a minor heart attack.

You can't help it. You grin. "Don't worry, I won't try anything on a plane. Especially not the first day of your break. While we're going to your house. With my brother right next to you."

He doesn't seem to be reassured.

"I won't force anything on you. You know that, right?"

He nods. "I'm not worried about that, just... jesus christ." He buries his face in his hands. "Sometimes I forget how fucking  _weird_ you are."

You snort. "I'm not weird, you're just vanilla as all fuck."

A stewerdess's voice comes over the speaker system. "We'll begin taxiing in just a moment. Please buckle your seatbelts and make sure your trays and chairs are in the upright position. Please turn off all electronics."

"John. Poke Dave."

John taps his arm.

Dave jumps like he's been electrocuted.

"Dave."

He takes his headphones off.

"You have to shut off your ipod. I know, I know, it's not connected to wifi or anything, but they make you shut it off anyway."

He turns it off and tucks it into his front pocket.

You can hear his breathing, deep and steady as he forcibly controls it. You wish you could give him a sleeping pill, but the flight's only three and a half hours, and if he took a sleeping pill you'd have to carry him off the plane. 

The plane begins moving.

Dave's hands clutch the armrests like someone's trying to take them away from him. 

"What are you looking at?" He mutters through clenched teeth, and you realize that both you and John are watching him like he's about to pull out a gun and start shooting.

"Oh, I don't know, just the kid sitting next to me who looks like he's going to puke?" John says, but something resembling actual concern makes it through the sarcasm.

"Davey, we haven't even lifted off yet. We're just - driving, basically. We're driving." 

He's so tense he doesn't even look at you, let alone yell at you for using his childhood nickname.

You half wish he was still a baby. When you flew down here with him, an eighteen-year-old with an infant, you got him to sleep straight through the flight. You were congratulated on the way out by people who had never had a peaceful flight with a baby before.

Maybe you should have been in charge of his sleep schedule for the past couple days. With some strategic napping and late bedtimes, he could have been fast asleep already.

You can see planes taking off out the window.

The plane turns towards them. "We're going to start speeding up in a minute or two, and then we're going to take off, okay?"

Dave nods.

"It's gonna be fine. We're on a midday flight. There's no reason for the pilot to be tired. Nearly all of the accidents that have happened any time recently happened because the pilots were tired. We'll be fine."

Dave hasn't stopped nodding. You're not sure if he's listening anymore, but he's acknowledging that you're speaking, and that's a good thing.

The plane starts speeding up.

Dave's knuckles are white. 

You cast around for something to say. "Pretty damn ironic, if you ask me. The kid who loves crows is afraid of flying."

He snorts involuntarily.

You feel it, that strange feeling in your stomach, the feeling of the floor pushing up against you harder than you're pushing down on it as the plane lifts off the ground. 

You no longer hear Dave's breath.

John nudges him nervously. "Dave? Are you breathing?"

Dave inhales sharply. "Mmhmm."

As the plane rises, you explain Bernoulli's Theorum and how it applies to planes, how planes are based off of birds, and the math behind flight. Dave nods every so often to show that he's paying attention, and you notice that the people around you have their heads angled towards you, listening. Finally, the stewerdess says that electronics can be used again, and you tell Dave he can go ahead and stop listening. He has his headphones on in an instant.

"How did you learn all that?" Asks the lady in front of you.

"Mechanical engineering major."

"Ah. Impressive."

"Thanks." She turns away, and a glance proves that the rest of your audience has gone back to politely ignoring you.

Except John. He's still staring at you.

"What?"

"Nothing, I'm just... surprised. I figured you'd have told Dave to suck it up."

"Not for this. Kid can't help having a phobia. Taking the garbage out? Doing laundry? Learning to fight? Getting his ass up and in school? Yeah. When he complained about that, I told him to suck it up. For this? Nah. I'm not a total dick."

John's nostrils flare. "Actually -"

" _No_."

He snickers. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Dave's hands relax, still curled around the armrest, but no longer holding on.

"How are you? Okay? At least, at peace with going home?"

John hunches over miserably. "Not really."

"Well, it's only a few days. And Dave and I will be there, and we're going into the city one of the five days, so there isn't really much time for him to be alone with you, is there?"

"How did you come out to your foster parents? I mean, you had to do it every time you got moved to a new family, right?"

You grimace. "You might not want to emulate me."

"Why?"'

"Well, my new parents would grin at me and introduce themselves and hold out their hands to shake mine, and I'd say something along the lines of 'Hi, I'm Dirk. I'm pansexual, and at some point, I will probably date someone who isn't a cisgender female. If you have any problems with that, tell me now so I know never to leave my room.' It worked for some people, not so much for others, and I really wasn't worried about maintaining or forming lasting relationships."

John snickers. "It's such a... polite way of putting it."

You shrug. "Well, if they didn't have a problem with it, I saw no reason to make a bad first impression."

"Dirk?"

"What?"

"I think you made the  _shittiest_ first impression you could have made without burning their house down." _  
_

You grin. "Eh, well, parents or not, I still turned out pretty well, didn't I?"

He coughs, and it sounds suspiciously like "puppet porn."

"Still sitting in first class."

Within twenty minutes, Dave's head has sagged to the side and John is asleep on your shoulder, the armrest pulled up so he can interlock his fingers with yours.

The two of them sleep straight through the flight, and none of you eat or drink anything.

You may as well have gotten economy seats.

You nudge John when you see Dave stirring. John sits up, blinking and looking around. Dave looks around, and tenses up when the pilot's voice announces that you're beginning descent. 

A stewerdess asks Dave to put his ipod away.

He puts it away with trembling fingers. 

Twenty minutes later - an eternity - Dave is using every word in his vocabulary to thank the pilot and god for your safe landing as you taxi up to the terminal.

It takes what you're absolutely sure is a year for you to get off the plane.

Another ten years of your life is spent waiting for your luggage.

As you haul your bag off the luggage carousel, John's phone rings. 

"Hello? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. Okay. Yeah. Yup. Yeah. We'll be there in ten. Bye. Love you too." He hangs up. "My dad is pulling around." He pulls his bag up over his shoulder. "We should go, if we've got all our luggage."

Dave frowns. "Are you all right? You sound... weird."

John huffs. "You've read the dictionary multiple times and the best word you can come up with is 'weird'?"

"I don't have a photographic memory, you know. I can only remember so much. And you didn't answer my question."

"Yeah, I'm all right. Let's go." He takes the lead as you head towards the exit, reaching the curb just as Egbert's car - a black Infiniti M - pulls up.

He exits and hugs John. 

He looks like he stepped out of a black-and-white movie.

He's wearing a hat and a suit, fitted so well that he must have gotten it tailored. He appears to have absolutely no facial expression when he greets you and Dave with a handshake.

John described him as 'boring.' You would choose the word 'bland.'

He asks you if you would sit in the front seat. You're on the verge of refusing - it's John's dad, he should be sitting up front - but then you notice John, already sliding into the backseat. "Sure. Thank you."

You slide into the front seat - leather, nice leather, not leather because it's easier to get crumbs out of leather if your messy-as-fuck kid eats in the car, but leather for the sake of leather. A built-in GPS. You study the controls. Heated seats and steering wheel. 

You glance at John in the rearview mirror. He looks absolutely miserable.

Egbert gets into the car, shutting the door with precisely the amount of force required to shut it, no more and no less. "Navigation system?" The GPS starts up. "Take us home." 

Voice recognition. And not one of the shitty ones, either, where you have to say the same thing fifty times before it does what you say. A nice one. 

"Mr. Strider, I'm afraid I never thanked you properly for paying for John's ticket."

"It wasn't a problem. Consider it my way of paying you back for having us over for Thanksgiving."

"It seemed only natural. You've housed and helped John twice now; the least I could do was return the favor."

Your muscles are strangely tense, as though they're preparing for a fight. You're sparring with Egbert, verbally, and you know you're at a disadvantage already. The short, polite conversations you had with Egbert when John was sick did not prepare him for you: black jeans, white polo, fingerless leather gloves, leather jacket, cap, and anime shades. They prepared him for someone on his level - someone in a suit and tie, someone whose blonde hair wasn't spikey and a little messy but cropped close to your head and combed properly. You've dropped a couple notches in his eyes, and he's no longer quite so grateful to you for 'housing and helping' John. "John was one of the best guests I've ever had. You raised him well."

You watch in the mirror as John tries and fails to hide a smirk. Dave looks just as tense as you feel, understanding that you're locked in some strange battle with your host, but unable to see the cause.

"I'm afraid I forgot to ask - how did you balance caring for John with work?"

He's lying, he didn't  _forget_ to ask anything, but it would have been an intrusive question before, with its underlying question of what you actually do for work and where you work. Earlier, he'd probably presumed that you had a spare vacation day and took the day off or something along those lines, but your choice of clothing ruled out the idea that you were an average member of society. "I work from home."

"How interesting. What kind of work do you do?"

You don't need John's warning glance. You are never, under any circumstances, telling Egbert that you make smuppet porn. For what is posisbly the first time in your life, you feel mildly embarrassed just knowing that that's what you do, as though Egbert can sense it. "Robotics and computer programming."

One of Egbert's eyebrows arches up, but not in disapproval; you've proven that you're intelligent, if not gentlemanly, and his approval of you has risen slightly. 

He smoothly moves the conversation away from you to Dave, asking him about classes and grades, and you've never been more grateful for Dave's command of the English language as you are now. Rather than answering with his normal run-on sentences full of curses and shortened words, he takes his cue from you and answers intelligently, pulling out every good grade he's gotten in his entire life as though they're his katanas in this battle.

Egbert never moves the conversation to John, instead making small talk the entire way to his house. You're not sure what to make of it. On the one hand, he's proven himself to be a bit of a douche already, and could just not give a shit about his kid. On the other hand, he's also proven himself to be polite to a fault - even while assessing your suitability as a caretaker for his son - and you find it hard to believe that the man who insisted on talking to his son on every single sick day John had doesn't care about his son.

You put his disregard of John down to his unwillingness to make his guests awkward bystanders in a family conversation. 

You do your best to take the brunt of the conversation yourself, sparing Dave and John. 

It's both the most incredibly boring thing you've ever done and the most incredibly exhausting thing you've ever done.

You wish you'd slept on the plane. 

When you arrive at Egbert's house, he takes two of the bags over one shoulder without showing the barest sign of strain. You take the third bag - yours - and follow him through the garage - perfectly clean and entirely devoid of the smell that generally accompanies a garage - into his kitchen, which is spotless. He shows you and Dave to the guest room, and leaves you to unpack. 

You hear him follow John down the hallway into his room.

"Do we really have to unpack? We're going to be here for what, four days? If even?"

You shake your head. "I'm not unpacking. But I think he wants to talk to John."

Dave throws himself across one of the twin-sized beds, which proves to be a couple inches too short for him; it'll probably be just long enough for you. Sometimes you forget that Dave is actually taller than you are. 

"He is  _crazy_."

"Not insane? Bizarre? Ludicrous? Just crazy?"

Dave pulls off his shades so you can appreciate the full force of the look he throws you. "That was an  _interrogation_. He should be a cop. He'd just make small talk with the suspect for ten minutes and he'd walk out with proof of the dude's innocence or a full confession. That was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced in my life, and I've lived with  _you_ for as long as I can remember. Speaking of which, thank god you do robotics as well, can you imagine telling him what you really do? You'd have gotten kicked out of the car, he wouldn't even have pulled over, he'd just hit the eject button and you'd disappear from the face of the planet."

"Nah, he'd pull over before hitting the eject button - he's quite the gentleman, after all."

Dave laughs. "Poor John. He has to deal with this bullshit  _all the time_. How has he  _survived_?"

"I have no idea."

Dave sighs and hauls himself up. "Well, the least we can do is keep John from spending _too_ much time with his dad." He heads determinedly out of the room. 

You follow him down the hall, where he raps on the doorframe before sticking his head inside John's room. "Johnny, you done unpacking?"

John and his dad follow Dave out, Dave talking animatedly about something his math teacher had done the other day.

You can practicaly hear his brain whirring as he censors himself.

John leads you down into the living room, which is dominated by a cherrywood baby grand piano.

"Oh, dude, you told me you had a nice piano at home, I didn't know you had a _baby grand_ -"

"You play piano?" You ask.

John nods.

"John has played piano for years. He's very good."

Is it just you, or is there a hint of fatherly pride in Egbert's voice?

"John, perhaps you should play for our guests?"

John shakes his head. "They're not really into piano, I don't think -"

"I want to hear," You and Dave say simultaneously.

With an incredulous glance at the two of you, John reluctantly sits down in front of the piano. His fingers settle on the keys, and you notice how long and thin his fingers are, perfect for gliding across slim piano keys. 

His fingers don't glide, though. They skim. They skim across the piano, barely pressing down. 

You can't for the life of you figure out how he's making music. 

But his fingers stumble across a key or two, ruling out the possibility of a recording, and you pay more attention to his fingers and watch them slide across the keyboard, gentle presses that somehow create Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. 

Dave nearly talks before it's over, and you can't blame him; the ending is so slow - it sounds like it ends, and then there's a chord, and  _that_ sounds like the ending, and then there's another chord before it's really over - and you nudge Dave, shutting him up before he can speak, allowing John to finish. 

John looks up.

"Dude, that was  _awesome_ , I can't believe you wouldn't play for me before, you should just play piano all the time, it's incredible -"

You nod in agreement. "You're really good."

John grins. "I try."

Dave drags John upstairs, leaving you with Egbert.

"I hope I'm not taking you away from your family?" Egbert asks.

"Nope."

"If it's not too intrusive, might I ask why not?"

You're marginally impressed. Egbert is asking a question. "My parents were - not the best parents. When I was little I was passed from foster family to foster family. I was fifteen when Dave was born, and I made sure we were housed together until I was eighteen and kicked out of the foster system. I took Dave with me and moved down south. Haven't heard from my parents since I went home and took Dave."

"You - took Dave?"

He noticed the wording. He's quicker than you thought. "As soon as I found out my mom had another kid, I called up DYFS and went with them to my house. I was the one who took Dave out."

"Isn't that - a little cruel? To not give them a chance?"

Eighteen years ago, you marched into a run-down home with a leak in the living room ceiling, a layer of dust on everything that wasn't used once a day, and dirt on the floor that had been ground into the white rug until it turned brown. You had strode right past your dad, passed out on the couch next to a needle and a pizza box that looked three days old, and found your mother separating lines of coke with a comb on the table next to Dave's crib. Dave himself was wearing a diaper. It was December in New Jersey, the house had no heat, and Dave was wearing nothing but a diaper. Your mom had barely noticed when you pushed past her and took Dave, shivering, out of his crib. "They had a chance. They didn't take it."

Egbert doesn't answer. 

He pulls a pipe out of a side table.

A pipe.

Not a cigarette or a cigar.

A goddamn pipe.

You manage not to laugh.

You're impressed by your own self-control.

"Might I ask where you learned robotics?"

"Well, I taught myself a good portion of it when I realized that I'd have to support Dave as well as myself, but for the more advanced stuff - I ended up at Rice University."

"Rice? The research university?"

"Yeah. It was much better than a hands-off school; I already knew what I was doing, for the most part."

"I presume you weren't worried about your grades, then?"

"Not really."

"Did you graduate?"

You study him. He sits perfectly still, one leg crossed over the other, grey eyes focused on you. "Egbert, I don't know what you want from me. I think things would go much smoother for the next few days if you would just ask."

"I did just ask a question."

"And my answer will decide whether or not you ask what you want to ask."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

You sigh. "I graduated with a cumulative GPA of 4.0. I was valedictorian. Does that answer your question?"

"It does precisely the opposite, in fact. I am afraid I made the mistake of allowing your appearance to dictate my opinion of you. I would greatly appreciate your forgiveness in this matter."

"What, did you think everyone down in Texas was ignorant?"

"No. However, those sunglasses... the gloves..." His eyes stray over the aforementioned offensive accessories. "They do not lend themselves to a favorable impression."

"I work from home. A 'favorable impression' is not something I've ever bothered to cultivate."

"I work in an office. A favorable impression can make the difference between a promotion and being fired."

He takes a drag from his pipe. 

You feel that you've reached an understanding with him. You both live different lives in which different things were expected of you. You cannot judge each other by what you each consider to be normal standards. 

Of course, as soon as he finds out that you're screwing his son and have made the majority of your money off of puppet porn, that understanding will disappear. But for now, the tension has disappeared, and you're happy with that.

"Dad!" John yells from upstairs. 

Egbert purses his lips. "I apologize for his behavior. He has always been a loud boy."

"Dave's worse. No contest."

"Dad!" John's voice comes down the stairwell. "Dave has a question for you!"

"No I  _don't_ John what the f - heck - it's not - _John_ -"

You raise your eyebrows at him when he appears behind John. He doesn't notice. He's staring at the floor, blushing bright red.

"Yes?" Egbert prompts.

"Dave likes your suit and wants to know where you got it."

Egbert's eyebrows fly up as he glances at Dave, standing there in faded jeans and a thin cotton shirt with a broken record on it. 

You're actually in agreement with Egbert. You never realized Dave was the kind of guy who wanted a suit.

"Well, I didn't buy it like this. I bought the suit and brought it to a tailor."

Dave nods.

John rolls his eyes. "He needs more instruction than  _that_."

It's incredible. John managed to catch his dad off-guard. 

"I - I'm not quite sure what you want from me. This would be much simpler if you would just ask."

You frown. He just stole the words you spouted a couple minutes ago.

"I think you should take Dave to get a suit. There's literally no one else on the face of the planet who knows more about suits than you do."

Dave's face is the same color as his eyes. "Dave, try not to overheat over there, okay?"

You can feel his glare through his shades.

"Well, I certainly wouldn't mind taking him," Egbert says slowly. "Mr. Strider, if you would accompany us? To lend Dave your opinion?"

"What?" You sputter. "I - uh - I don't -" 

"Uh, Mr. Egbert, what my brother's trying to say is, he hasn't set foot in a clothing store in two years, and that was to replace his stock of clothes that hide oil stains. He'd be useless."

You'd like to be offended, but you've never yelled at Dave for telling the truth, and you're not going to start now.

Egbert takes a deep breath. "I wouldn't want to leave Mr. Strider here on his own -"

"I could stay with him," John offers. "I've never gone suit-shopping in my life, and I'm not going to start now."

Egbert almost looks disappointed. "Are you sure? If David is going -"

"Dad, it's not David, it's just Dave -"

"If David is going, it would be a good opportunity for -"

"Nope."

"Are you absolutely -"

"Yes."

Egbert sighs. "Well, it's a little late to go today, and tomorrow everyone will be closed for Thanksgiving, but we could certainly go on Friday, if that is acceptable?"

Dave looks up. "Wait, really? Dude - Mr. Egbert - thanks, that's awesome of you, really, I'm - thank you," he finishes lamely. 

You look at John.

His mouth forms the hint of a smirk.

The two of you will be alone for a couple hours the day after tomorrow.

He's more manipulative than Sansa Stark. 

He winks at you as he turns to follow Dave back upstairs.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanksgiving. Smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year to all my readers!  
> I took a break from plot. Plot will come next chapter.  
> Thank you for your comments!! Honestly the best thing in the world is logging on to find out that people have commented, you people keep me writing.

John wasn't kidding.

His dad cooks like a god.

You wake up the next morning to the smell of turkey.

When you leave the room, fully dressed and ready to go, Dave struggling to put on a shirt, John is stumbling out of his bedroom in his pajama pants and a t-shirt. 

A quick glance around shows that you're still alone.

You kiss John gently. "Good morning."

John grins at you. "I didn't get to talk to you yesterday. How are you feeling about tomorrow?"

You grin back at him. "I've never been more excited for Dave to go shopping in my entire life. How did you even  _manage_ that?"

"Dave was like "dude, your dad's suit is awesome, I want one, where did he get it?" and I was like  _this is my chance_."

"Well, I'm glad you took it. Is your dad cooking already?"

"Yeah, he slow cooks the turkey for like, six hours."

"Is the rest of your family coming over?"

"I've got as much family as you do. My dad was an only child, and my nanna's been dead for years. We usually eat Thanksgiving dinner alone."

You follow him downstairs. "That's a little sad."

"What did  _you_ do for dinner? I hate to tell you this, but you don't have any family either."

"Usually we'd end up at my friend Roxy's house. It actually worked out all right this year, though - two days after I booked the plane tickets, she told me a family member from the middle of abso-fuckin-lutely nowhere was visiting and I probably wouldn't want to come." 

"Roxy? Isn't that the girl - you said I overheard her say your name when I was sick? Who's she?"

"Freshmen year, my roommate brought her drunk ass back to our appartment. Then she decided she didn't want to screw him because I was way better looking, glanced at my homework and corrected it in two seconds flat, decided that 'Dirk' was a boring name and that she was going to call me 'Dirky' instead, accidentally woke Dave up, sang him a lullaby in the best singing voice I've ever heard - drunk or otherwise - and put him right the fuck back to sleep, picked up my katana, nearly stabbed herself with it, nearly stabbed  _me_ with it, beat my robot in a rap battle, and passed out on my couch. The next day, I woke up, and she had cleaned the entire apartment and left her number. My roommate called me a cockblock for the rest of the year, and Roxy became my best friend."

"She nearly stabbed you and your first thought was 'yes, we'll be best friends'?" John asks. _  
_

"Well - yeah, basically."

He gapes at you.

Dave trips and nearly falls out of the guest room.

"Dave! You coming?"

"No," he says grumpily. "Why does it smell like turkey?"

"Egbert is cooking already."

"It's early, it is way to fucking early to be cooking -"

"It's ten-thirty," John says with a glance at the clock.

"Too. Fucking. Early."

The three of you make your way into the kitchen.

"David -"

"It's still just Dave, dad -"

"If you plan on putting your suit on while half-asleep, I'm not taking you to get one."

Dave leans back, misses the wall, and falls on his ass. 

You stare at him dispassionately as he pulls himself into a standing position. "You were  _not_ up that late last night."

"Pure terror tires me out, okay Bro, it ain't my fault."

"Pure terror?" Egbert asks cautiously.

"He's afraid of flying."

"It's weird, man, the engines are pointed back, not down, that just moves you forward, not up."

"I explained all of Bernoulli's Principle to you." 

"Yeah, well, it doesn't make sense. Anyway. I vow to you that I will not be putting my suit on while half-asleep."

John's eyebrows crease. "You couldn't have just said 'I swear'?"

"No, John. No, that I could not have managed. Simplistic vocabulary erodes my delicate mental state."

John opens his mouth.

"Don't bother. When he's tired he just says words. He recited three pages worth of the dictionary one morning. It was awful."

"I'm a fuckin' genius."

"If you are, indeed, so intelligent, why don't you take the curses out of your vocabulary and replace them with better words?" Egbert suggests.

"Curses are words too, just like other words. And 'fuck' is a great word. It can go  _anywhere_. It's the only word that you can insert mid-word."

Egbert looks for a moment as though he'd like to disagree, and then he changes his mind and returns to what looks like homemade stuffing. 

He allows you to eat only a granola bar for breakfast. Apparently, you woke up too late to eat breakfast, and dinner would be too big to have a meal this late in the morning.

He's right.

By the time you finish eating dinner - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and apple sauce - you don't even think you'll be able to wake up tomorrow, let alone take advantage of your time alone with John.

John looks like he feels exactly the same way.

You're pretty sure Dave never woke up in the first place.

Egbert alone remains strong, clearing off the table.

"Look at 'im go," Dave mutters. "All - clearing off the table and shit. Meanwhile, I'm doing my best not to fall off my chair and roll away like what's 'er name, the girl from  _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ who chews the gum and turns into a blueberry."

"Violet Beauregarde?"

"Yeah, her."

"Her name is literally Violet. Violet turns violet. It's the whole reason why it's her character that turns into a blueberry."

Dave looks at you like you've exhausted him. "Well, fuck that."

"You really should watch your language, David," Egbert admonishes as he enters the room. "Although I suppose it's not my place to correct you for that."

John opens his mouth to correct his dad on Dave's name, but rolls his eyes and closes it.

You aren't so tired you miss the implications of his statement.

You aren't so desperate for his approval that you're going to tell Dave to stop cursing.

You heave yourself up and bring plates with you.

John and Dave follow your example. 

"David, if I measured you beforehand, tomorrow would go much more quickly."

"Sounds good to me." He drops his plate in the sink. 

"Probably better to measure him now," you say casually. "He's the biggest he'll ever be, right now, with a full stomach."

Egbert purses his lips. "The table -"

You shrug. "John and I can handle it."

John glances at you as he heads into the dining room. 

Egbert sighs. "I wouldn't want you to -"

"You're taking my brother to get a suit tomorrow, and I'm counting on you not to let him spend all my money. Clearing off the table is the least I can do."

Dave dumps his dishes into the sink. "He's probably right."

Egbert sighs again. "All right. There's a tape measure in my room." 

Dave follows Egbert up the stairs as John walks in, balancing three plates and the gravy boat. He grins at you as he passes you, and dumps the dishes in the sink. "How -"

You're behind him, pressing him against the sink, grinding your dick into his plush ass, grazing your teeth up his neck, one hand on his hip, the other sliding up his body. His back is arched, his head tilted to give you access to his throat, a stifled moan making its way out of his mouth. You slide two of your fingers into his mouth, and he sucks on them eagerly as you slide your other hand around and dip it into his pants. 

You hear footsteps upstairs and pull back, returning to the dining room for more plates. 

Egbert and Dave come back downstairs - "I was absolutely sure the tape measure was in my room -" and you drop dishes in the sink so John can wash them off. Judging by the look he throws you, he's got a boner to hide.

Dave follows Egbert into his office. 

You hear Egbert say "Ah, here it is - I'll just measure you here -" and grab John and turn his around, pressing your mouth to his and pushing him back over the sink. He bends backwards, pulling you with him, tangling his fingers in your hair as his tongue tangles with yours, his erection pressing against your thigh.

You pull away after a moment - it can't take  _that_ long for Egbert to measure your brother - and as you head back into the dining room you hear the office door swing open. 

"Dude, you really didn't get through that many dishes, what have you been doing here, resting your hands in the sink, humming to yourself, picking your nose or some shit -"

"You're not exactly helping, Dave," you remind him as you dump dishes in the sink.

"Really, Dave. I mean, you're yelling at me for not doing too much, but you're not doing anything at all, so really, who's the lazy one here? I'd say you," John says sincerely. 

Dave rolls his eyes and grumbles as he grabs the last plates off the table. 

You were wrong, earlier. 

You thought you'd be too full to make love to John.

* * *

You were definitely wrong.

You wake up the next morning with a glance at the clock.

You smell bacon. 

Dave yawns and stretches. "It's too fuckin' early for this shit, why am I awake, I'm a college student, I can't function this early in the morning," he complains, arching his back and rolling over, right off the bed, landing on the floor with a loud  _thump_ in a tangle of blankets.

You wish you could say your first instinct was to help him, but when Egbert and John burst through the door, you're laughing so hard you've stopped breathing. John assesses the situation and his eyes pop out of his head, and then he's leaning on your bed, gasping for breath as he laughs. Egbert takes a little longer, but then the confused worry on his face dissolves, and he actually rolls his eyes. 

"David, are you hurt?" He asks, his usual calm demeanor slightly strained as laughter threatens to trickle in.

"Well,  _physically_ I guess I'm all right, but I gotta say, _emotionally_ I'm pretty damn strained. I fall off my bed and my own brother doesn't even get up..." he sighs dramatically. "Guess ya don't love me after all."

You snort through your laughter. "Listen, if it was something bad, something- like - I'd jump in front of a car for you. But this?" You stare at him, tangled in pajama pants and a ripped t-shirt and two blankets and his sheets. "Nah. This is just funny."

Egbert excuses himself, dragging John with him.

You reach for your shades - 

And frown.

Both you and Dave looked straight at him, multiple times, without your shades on.

He didn't ask a single question, or even make a face.

His voice was strained when he asked Dave if he was okay. Maybe it wasn't caused by laughter, but by the shock of Dave's eyes?

You consider leaving your shades on the bedside table, but no; Egbert keeps his house well-lit, and you've never particularly enjoyed headaches.

Dave follows you downstairs, ignoring your snarky remarks to hold the railing so he doesn't fall. 

Breakfast is eggs and bacon, and the only one of you who eats at a normal pace is Egbert; Dave always eats like someone's about to take his food from him, you're looking forward to the moment when Dave and Egbert leave, and judging by the way John is glancing at the clock, he's excited for the same reason. 

You take the initiative and begin cleaning off the table, much to Egbert's chagrin. He insists that you sit and relax while he cleans off the table - "You cleared off the table yesterday, what kind of host makes their guests clean up -" and you tap your fingers against your knee.

Something touches your leg under the table.

You twitch.

John barely hides a smirk as his bare foot works its way up your leg, pushing between your thighs.

You fight the urge to jump across the table and bend him over the goddamn thing. 

"David, I'd like to leave in a few minutes. It will give us more time to pick out suits before your appointment with the tailor."

Dave nods. "Sounds good to me."

You and John sit at the table, waiting, waiting, for Egbert and Dave to leave.

You can feel tension winding in your muscles. You want to slam him against the wall. 

He jumps slightly when his dad pokes his head in. "Are you both sure you wouldn't like to come?"

"I'm sure," you answer in unison.

Five minutes later, the door closes behind them.

You sit, tensely, waiting, until you hear the car back out of the driveway and whiz away.

And then you and John are standing, but you're faster than he is, swinging your body across the thin table and pushing him against the wall, grabbing his wrists and pinning them above his head, kissing him, tasting bacon and the sweetness of orange juice and the elusive taste that belongs to him as you press your knee between his legs. He arches his back, pressing himself against you, panting into your mouth.

He laughs breathlessly. "I thought  _I_ was the horny teenager."

"You are," you mutter as you nip at his bottom lip.

" _I'm_ not the one who jumped across the table," he says pointedly.

Oh.

So  _that_ ' _s_ how he's going to be.

You push off of him and walk calmly away.

"What are you doing?" John says, his voice rising a little.

"I don't know. I'm kinda bored, actually."

"You -" He slides in front of you. "You little shit!"

You raise one eyebrow. "What?"

He puts his face in yours. "You. Little. Shit."

Before he knows what's happening, you've slid a hand under his ass and another under his leg and hitched him up around your waist. "Hold on," You warn him before picking up his other leg and wrapping it around your waist. 

You carry him up the stairs, his eyes enormous. "Dude, I am  _not_ that light -"

"I've carried you before," you remind him. 

He frowns. "No, you haven't."

"Yeah, I - I guess you wouldn't remember, would you," you realize as you mount the stairs. "I carried you when you were drunk and when you were sick."

He snorts. "And now you're carrying me while I'm horny, so you've never once carried me when I was free of afflictions."

You pause at the top of the stairs to kiss him. 

He laughs and says something about how you're getting nice.

You walk into his room and throw him roughly onto the bed. "Lube? Condoms?"

"Bedside table," he says, his voice muffled by his shirt as he pulls it over his head.

You push him backwards, and he reaches up and pulls your shades off your face, smiling a little when he sees your eyes before he pulls you down for a kiss. You work his pants down. He lifts his hips up to make your job a little easier.

You trace the contours of his chest and stomach with your tongue, rememorizing his body, inch by inch, and suddenly you have a craving, for him, for John, and you realize how long it's been since you last touched him, held him - maybe he's right, you  _are_ getting emotional - but it doesn't matter. You can't help but run your hands over his body, pressing gently to feel the slight give of his skin beneath your fingertips, tasting his skin, biting places that won't be seen by anyone else, by anyone but you, he's  _yours_ -

You move your mouth up to ravage his, biting his lips and sucking his tongue, listening to his quickening breath, feeling his hips buck up as he searches for friction against your pants.

You lube up your fingers and use your clean hand to pull his legs up around your waist, giving you room to move your hand between his legs, pressing at his entrance, remembering how tight he is, how long it takes to stretch him out and how eagerly he pushes himself on you.

You find yourself fingerfucking him, sliding your fingers in and out as he squeezes around you, listening as he moans low in his throat.

" _Dirk_ \- Dirk  _please_ -"

You press your lips to his throat, reveling in the smoothness of his skin against your mouth and the roughness of his fingers tangled in your hair, noting the familiar hitch in his breath as he ruts against you with increasing fervency.

" _Dirk I'm gonna_ -"

You pull your fingers out and pull away from him.

His confusion is lost in his single-minded need for friction, and he reaches for himself.

You slap his hand away.

He looks up at you, blue eyes pleading. "It  _hurts_ -" He moans.

You kiss his stomach, just above the dripping tip of his dick, your hands on his hips, holding him down, preventing him from pushing up against you. He whines as you kiss up his stomach and lick his nipple. 

"Dirk, I need you, I  _need_ you -" he whimpers as he grabs your shirt and tugs it up. You let him pull it over your head. He pulls you down for a rough kiss, one hand sliding down over your back, tracing the short ridges of ancient scars as he tries to pull you closer to him, but you've spent your whole life getting stronger and he probably hasn't even been to the gym once since school started, and his attempts at pulling you down are nothing compared to your ability to hold yourself up.

Finally, he resorts to sliding his hand down your pants, which you certainly won't stop him from doing.

He rubs his palm against you, his need fading to annoyance as you fail to react. 

You raise an eyebrow at him. "What, is that all you can manage?"

Frustration flashes over his face, and he pushes your pants down, giving himself more room to work.

You grin and kiss him. "I don't think so." You slide your fingers back up his ass.

He gasps, and his hands still. " _Yes_ -"

You speed up, and his hands flicker over your body, unsure where to set them. They end up on your back, scratching across your skin, adding to the marks already there, and you're okay with that, you  _want_ his marks on you -

His asshole squeezes around your fingers and he throws his head back.

You pull your fingers out.

"Dirk!" He screams, barely coherent. "If you don't - if you don't let me - if I don't -"

You hold his arms down. 

He looks at you murderously. "I will chop off your ugly head if you do not let me cum."

You can feel him straining against you.

You glance down at his dick, rock-hard and dripping pre-cum all over John's stomach. 

"Don't move," you warn. 

He glares at you suspiciously. 

You shift your weight off him. 

He doesn't move.

You rip open the condom and slide it over your dick. 

You hear John's breath catch.

Your own breath catches as you coat your dick in lube, jerking your hand up the length of your dick a couple times for John's sake - his eyes are glued to your dick, his flushed face the picture of arousal. 

His hand moves as though it has a mind of its own, reaching for his dick.

You growl at him as you smack his hand away move towards him.

His eyes widen and he stops breathing for a moment, before hissing "Jesus  _fuck_  that was the hottest noise you've ever made -"

You shut him up with your mouth, occupying his tongue with yours as you align your dick with his ass and push inside him. 

He moans into your mouth.

You don't bother going slowly. 

He doesn't care. 

His hands squeeze your ass as you pound into him. You bite his collarbone where it'll be hidden by his shirt, listening to the music of his moans and gasps, closing your eyes as you kiss him to heighten your other senses, the heat of his body tangled around yours, the tightness of his ass and his limbs around you, holding you against him. 

His moans turn into short, quick pants as his nails dig into your ass, and you reposition one of your hands so that you can lift the other hand up and bring it between you and John, grabbing the base of his dick and jerking your hand up, sharply, twisting at the top, pressing on the head, and he cums with a scream as his hips buck up, his ass squeezing around you, his hands skittering across your back.

You cum a few minutes later as John's breathing returns to normal, grunting his name as your eyes squeeze shut. 

He pulls you down on top of him, taking all your weight on his body so he can kiss you lazily, tongue slowly sweeping inside your mouth. 

"I think we need to clean up," you murmur after a moment. 

He turns his head to glance at the clock and makes a face. "It's barely been an hour. The store is twenty minutes away, it's going to take them twenty minutes minimum to find a suit or two - Dave's picky, so longer -" he ignores you as you kiss his jawline. " - fifteen minutes to the tailor, half an hour for him to pin the suit in the proper places, twenty-five minutes home. Twenty plus twenty plus fifteen plus thirty plus twenty-five - one-hundred and ten - it's been an hour - so subtract sixty - we've still got at least fifty minutes."

"Still. Cleaning up is gonna take some time."

He looks up at you and smiles as he studies your eyes. You can't help but smile back as his electric blue eyes flicker between your orange ones. He removes one hand from your neck to cup your cheek. 

He snickers. "You're so cute when you get all mushy like this."

You roll your eyes and roll off of him and out of his bed.

"And you're so hot when you're angry," he continues happily from the bed. "Feel free to bring me a towel!"

You look at him over your shoulder. "Oh no, no towels in  _this_ house, your dad would notice within five minutes flat. Gotta  _wash_ it off."

He grimaces, but follows you into the bathroom.

"How are you planning on showering without getting your hair wet? You can't tell me your hair dries that fast. And Dave would notice if we both had wet hair."

You pull him into the bathtub. "I'm gonna show you something awesome, college student. Ready?"

He nods, watching you skeptically and a little anxiously.

You pull the showerhead out of its little stand-thing that probably has a name that you don't know.

You forgive yourself for the gap in your knowledge. You're a robotics expert, not a plumber. 

You start the water, pointing the shower head down. 

When it warms up, you point it at John's stomach, washing the cum off. "See? It's a miracle, I know."

He looks at you with one eyebrow raised, unimpressed. "Wow. That. That is awesome. Incredible."

You wash yourself off. "Well, you didn't know it."

"I did!"

You throw him a skeptical glance. "Right."

He continues to insist that he knew how fuckin' easy it is to wash his body without washing his hair, even as you dry off and dress, even as he curls up against you on the couch as you flip the channel to My Little Pony.

He doesn't stop until you hear the car come up the driveway, at which point the two of you scoot to separate sides of the couch and you flip the channel to something more grown-up: a Ghostbusters marathon.

Dave flops on the couch between the two of you, handing you your credit card and telling John about the three suits -  _three_ \- he picked out, how awesome they are, how one of them is bright red, how he paid the tailor extra so that the suits would be done by tomorrow.

You glance at Egbert. "Tomorrow?"

He shrugs. "I believe I make up most of my tailor's business. He is rarely busy, and I do seem to give him quite a bit of my money."

You nod. "Thank you, for helping Dave. I'd never have been able to get him a suit, let alone get it fitted."

"It was a pleasure."

"Aren't we going into the city tomorrow?" John asks.

"Yes, we're picking up the suits on the way. They'll just have to sit in the car for a few hours. We should be leaving around eight o'clock."

Dave shuts up.

You glance at him.

He's staring, open-mouthed, at Egbert.

"Are you attempting to catch flies?" Egbert asks.

"He's attempting to wrap his brain around the idea of getting up that early," You explain.

"Bro, you're carrying me. I am  _not_ walking anywhere tomorrow."

"Nope."

"You suck."

"True."

Dave groans dramatically. "God, I hope I get hit by a car or something. At least I'd get to  _rest_."


	13. Chapter 13

Sure enough, when eight o'clock comes around the next morning, all four of you are climbing into Egbert's car. Dave, a lifelong Texan, is huddled up in one of John's coats, hands in his pockets, head inside his coat like a turtle barely poking out of its shell. 

"It's barely the end of November," John cries as he gets into the car. "What would you do if you had to live up here all year long?"

Dave lifts his head out of his coat long enough to spit out the word "Freeze."

John looks at you, wearing a pink sweatshirt - to replace the one John stole - and back at Dave. "Your brother doesn't have a problem with it!"

Dave looks at John, realizes that the effect is lost with his shades on, and takes his hand out of his pocket long enough to pull his shades down so John can see the glare Dave is aiming at him. "Bro  _lived_ here for eighteen years. I lived here for  _three_." He pushes his shades back up and shoves his hand back in his pocket.

Egbert backs out of the driveway.

By the time he's driven to the end of the street, Dave's head is against the window, and you'd bet everything you own that he's already asleep.

John reaches out and pokes his cheek.

He doesn't move.

"He's out. Leave him there for the car ride. He'll be a little nicer if he gets some more sleep."

 John stares at him in consternation for a moment before transferring his gaze to you.

You shrug. "If you put him on something that moves and isn't a rollercoaster, he sleeps."

The ride to the tailor's tiny shop is quiet except for the hum of the motor. 

John's asleep by the time you arrive.

Egbert glances in the rearview mirror. "I suppose the ride into the city will be much more pleasant if they sleep though it. Would you be willing to stay in here with them while I grab the suits?"

"Sure."

He closes the door quietly behind him.

"Heh. He always does that."

You look over your shoulder. "Faking sleep?"

John grins at you. "I have been in that store once and it was horrible. If he thinks I'm asleep, he lets me stay in here."

"Y'know, if you actually  _did_ something with your dad every so often, maybe it would be a little easier to talk to him. He's not very judgmental."

"How do  _you_ know?"

"Well, for one thing, when he came running in after Dave fell out of bed, he saw both of our eyes, and didn't say a word."

"Neither did I," John points out.

"And that's strange. I have orange eyes. You wanna know why I wear these shades all the time?"

"Light hurts?"

"That too, but even then, I could take the shades off on a cloudy day or some shit. But when I was little, it was weeks before I found a foster family, because my eyes were off-putting. Dave had it worse, growing up down south. Kids used to call him devil-eyes. He'd go to the nurse's office with a headache and get sent home because the nurse 'didn't know what to do for him'. I ended up homeschooling him until middle school, when he'd get new teachers who'd never heard of the red-eyed kid. The fact that you and your dad don't care is pretty damn incredible."

He frowns. "Okay, but you've had sex with a lot of people, haven't you?"

You blink. "Where did that question come from?"

"You have. So. How do you know they won't be bothered by your eyes? Do you show them your eyes first, and wait for their reaction? Or do you wait until you've got them in bed before whipping off your shades and showing 'em the goods?"

You bite your lip. 

He waits.

You say nothing, and turn to face the front again.

You hear a choked giggle work its way out of John's throat. 

"Dirk? Please, please don't tell me - you just - keep your shades on the whole time you have sex?"

"Sometimes I just turn the lights off, but that makes a lot of people nervous."

John shoves his face into his forearm, trying to muffle his laughter, and then with an "oh" his head falls against the window, and he falls silent.

You glance towards the store and see Egbert leaving. You roll your eyes. "I  _still_ have more sex than you do."

He giggles once and falls silent.

Egbert opens the trunk and lays the three suits out as carefully as he can. You've seen people handle  _babies_ with less care.

He slides into the front seat. "They're both still asleep?"

"Passed out."

Egbert pulls out of the parking lot. "The drive to the city is about forty-five minutes from here."

You nod. 

The silence that falls doesn't bother you.

You find yourself thinking about the Egbert family, and how little you know about them. 

What's Egbert's first name? What about him makes John so scared to come out? John is the exact opposite of spineless. If he had the confidence to throw pie in your face, to invite you back to his room, to buy lingerie in a mall in Texas, he should be able to come out to his dad, shouldn't he? 

What would you have done if you'd been raised in a normal family? Raised with the expectation that you would marry a woman and have children and become a productive part of society?

You frown.

You wouldn't be where you are now, you know that much. If you'd had a dad like Egbert, you'd never even have considered making smuppets, let alone actually  _made_ them. 

"Is something wrong?" Egbert asks.

You realize your facial expression has twisted into one of confusion. "Where's John's mother?"

That wasn't what you meant to say.

You consider letting it stand, but he's done nothing but help Dave and you've done nothing but screw his son and he deserves his privacy. "Sorry, I -"

"No, it's a perfectly understandable question, and entirely fair, considering I know large portions of your life and you know absolutely nothing of mine. I'm not quite sure where John's mother is. She disappeared just a little while after he was born and was never found. I cannot say that I was surprised. I met her after she had entirely uprooted herself from her hometown. I never did meet her family, and we never got married. To be perfectly candid with you, I was shocked that she waited so long to leave, and there is a distinct possibility that the only reason she stayed was because she was pregnant with John."

"She didn't leave a note?"

"No."

"How do you know she wasn't abducted?"

"She took her bottle opener. It was the one thing she had with her from home when I met her, and she never let it leave the house."

"She drank a lot?"

"Not once when she was pregnant with John. I was very impressed - the moment she realized she was pregnant, she stopped drinking entirely." He glances in the mirror. "He inherited her personality. I - I'm a little calmer than he is, than his mother is. A little less prone to laughter. More of a homebody. The moment John had a chance to leave, he went all the way to Texas. I live in my mother's house."

You should really leave him alone now.

"How old was John when she left?"

"Eight months old."

"You raised him by yourself?"

"Well, there were babysitters, of course. I still had to work. But for the most part, yes."

That's it. That's really all you can ask, in good conscience.

"Maybe this is a little too personal, but do you ever resent her for sticking you with him?"

Egbert smiles, an honest-to-god genuine smile, something you never thought you'd see. "Never. I was incredibly grateful, in fact, when I found that she'd left him for me. I doubt she would have done well with him. She was a wonderful mother, but I have no doubt that raising a child, bringing him with her wherever she went, and having to stay in one place for him to go to school would all have taken a toll on both of them. I was happy to raise him, and I have never once resented her for allowing me to do so. I feel the same way about raising him that I assume you feel about raising your brother. While I can't presume to know how you feel about your parents, I believe I can say with some certainty that you never minded raising David?"

"No. No, I was never angry at them for him."

"Than you understand how I feel."

"I guess it kills you that he doesn't call very often, huh."

He glances in the rearview mirror, checking that John's still asleep. "It bothers me to no end, Mr. Strider."

You let the conversation drop after that. 

You find that when you look in the side mirror, you can see Dave's face, squashed against the window.

What were your parents like when they were younger? Before they fell into their individual addictions? If they'd never gotten into the hard stuff, would you and Dave have had a normal sibling relationship? Would either of you exist? You started making smuppets because of him. What would you have done if he had never been born?

You're quickly coming to the conclusion that you are one of the incredibly tiny number of people whose horrible circumstances made it possible to get rich.

Or maybe not. Maybe if your parents had had money, they'd have bought you parts for your robots. Maybe you'd be more famous for your robotics than your sex toys.

Your head begins to pound as you contemplate all the different possibilities. You liked robotics and computer programming so much because if you were curious about something, you could try it. With this, you have no way of knowing, only infinite opportunities for you to have screwed up and failed. 

Traffic builds as you near the city.

Egbert sighs. "We missed rush hour, but it's the month before Christmas, and unfortunately we will have to fight our way through holiday crowds."

"I'm cool with that. Yo, Davey, wake up," you say, reaching around behind you and tapping his knee. "We're on our way into the city."

Dave jumps and manages to slap your hand before you pull it back. You raise your eyebrows. "Nice reflexes."

"Thanks."

John opens his eyes and stretches, yawning loudly. 

You fight the urge to roll your eyes.

He and Dave chatter for the next half hour, sometimes embroiling you in their conversations, rarely involving Egbert. 

He finds a place to park, by some miracle, and you head straight to the Hollister store on John's and Dave's orders.

The store is crowded, dark, and loud, and you and John are quickly separated from Dave and Egbert. 

The sly look on John's face takes some of the blame from the teens.

He nearly passes a rack full of jeans, but pauses, sifting through them. 

You lean down so your mouth is against his ear.

"If I had you with your wrists and ankles tied to the bed, your ass in the air and your face buried into the pillow while I pounded into you and jerked you off, would you  _really_ care if I was wearing my shades? Really?"

You pull away and glance at his face.

His pupils are dilated - although you're not sure if it's from arousal or the horrible lighting - his face is flushed - but again, you don't know if it's from arousal or the too-hot press of bodies around you - and he looks like he might have stopped breathing - but maybe that's just because of the strong perfume they've sprayed.

He's staring at you like you're a god.

That, you can't attribute to the repulsive atmosphere. 

He glances around, pulls you ten feet to the left behind a particularly tall display covered in black, brown, blue, and white versions of the same long, thin, hoodie, where you're caught between the display and the wall, kisses you hungrily, and breathlessly half-mutters, half-screams-over-the-music in your ear that "One day, you are  _going_ to do that to me, holy  _jesus_ -" and you realize that, holy fuck, he's okay with that, he'd be okay with you tying him up, he's turned on by the thought of you tying him up - maybe tying a spreader bar between his ankles - maybe you should bring up riding crops, shit almighty - how much farther could you go? Could you talk to him about leashes? Bloodplay? How much would he be okay with? 

He inhales sharply. "I don't know what you're thinking about, but the face you're making makes it look fun, so we're gonna have to have a long talk one of these days, preferably involving very little clothing -"

You grab him and turn him around, removing your hands just in time for Dave to come around the corner. "Yo, Dave, John's trying to choose between brown and blue. Got an opinion?"

Dave glances at the sweatshirts. "Nah, none of them are red. Bro, I need your credit card -"

And so the day continues, although John doesn't actually manage to get you alone again; you only go into one more club-like store, and Egbert insists on remaining outside, so you stay outside to keep him company, just as much for Dave's sake as for Egbert's - if Egbert was outside and you and John were macking on each other in some corner, Dave would be wandering around on his own, and while he could beat any ol' kidnapper if he had his katana, it doesn't feel right to send him into a dark, loud store, with his vision further obscured by his shades, and expect him to walk around alone and unarmed. If he and John are in there alone, John will stay with him. 

And it's not like John doesn't like Dave. You're not sticking him with an annoying ten-year-old that he has to babysit. You're sticking him with his best friend. He should be able to handle that.

You point that out to him in the incredibly loud Hershey store.

He scowls at you. "I get to see Dave all the time. Every day. All of them. You, I get to see about, oh, once a month."

He has a point.

You don't walk into many more dark and crowded stores in which you could be alone with him, though, which you're happy about.

Between you and Dave, John should pick Dave, every time. 

You're not one to lie to yourself, and you're not going to start now: you still feel guilty, like you stole John, and the fact that Dave doesn't know isn't helping.

Of course, you have absolutely no idea how to tell him, either. "Yo, Davey, your best friend and I have been screwing every chance we got since Parent's weekend. Also, we're in love, and when he comes over he's probably going to be spending just as much time with me as with you, and he ain't sleeping in your room anymore, he's sleeping in my bed -" nah, it wouldn't go over well.

John rolls his eyes at you and throws you a couple pointed glances, but by the end of the day, he's stopped bothering trying to get you alone, and when you climb into the car holding at least one bag from every store you walked into - including two Reese's cups the size of your face - he and Dave are talking like best friends do when one of them isn't screwing the other's brother.

The first thing Egbert does when he walks through the door is march into the kitchen, announcing that dinner will be in half an hour.

You, Dave, and John haul your bags upstairs, where you spend the entire half-hour figuring out how to fit everything into your bags without ruining Dave's new suits. When Egbert announces dinner, John is lying on the floor, complaining loudly about having to carry his bag through the airport.

Dave stands and pulls John to his feet. "It's your own fault you bought so much stuff."

"Fuck you."

"I don't think I will."

"I'm okay with that."

"Jesus. The two of you bicker like four-year-olds."

"Only friends can argue and still stand the sight of each other's faces," John says sagely.

"And if you argue non-stop?" 

John throws his arm around Dave's shoulders. " _Best_ friends."

Dave grins and throws his arm around John's shoulders. "Exactly."

You watch indifferently as they struggle to walk down the steps while attached at the hip.

Dinner is light - pasta with veggies and some sauce you've never heard of - and the four of you end up watching TV for the rest of the evening, somehow managing to pick a movie that made John happy without pissing off Dave. 

You fall asleep absolutely sure that you won't wake up until ten.

Which is why, when you wake up to the barest hint of dawn light through the window, you're surprised.

You sit up silently, looking around for whatever woke you up, but there's nothing. 

You probably just have to piss.

You sigh quietly and get out of bed, padding barefoot out of the room and shutting the door behind you.

You head down the hallway towards the bathroom, but pause when you reach John's door.

You swear you just heard a sound from his room.

You wait.

You hear it again.

You knock softly on his door.

He falls silent.

"John?" You mutter, pushing the door open a crack. "It's me."

You peek in.

John cracks an eye open, and sighs in relief.

You slip inside and close his door behind you. 

His eyes find yours. 

You recognize that facial expression - cheeks flushed, eyes wide, lips parted. You've seen it too often to be confused as to its meaning.

You sit on the edge of his bed and bend over to kiss him. "Why'd you wake up so early?" You slide a hand under the blankets and find his dick, still grasped in his hand.

"Dreaming - of you -" He pants quietly. 

"Well, fuck if that isn't the hottest thing I've heard all day."

"It's _six in the morning_ you dickhead -" 

You press down on his slit.

He inhales sharply. 

"Well, I'd say it was the hottest thing I'd heard all week, but yesterday you said you wanted me to tie you up, so -" You jerk your hand up his shaft once, twice. "Clearly, I can't say that."

He's biting his hand, cheek pressed into the pillow, as his other hand grabs at your wrist for something to hold onto.

You kiss his exposed neck. "Shame we can't try that now, huh," you whisper against his skin before moving down his bare chest and stomach, pushing the blankets back and exposing his cock. "Guess we'll have to do something different." 

You kiss the tip of his dick.

You can hear him trying to breathe evenly.

You hope he's struggling with that.

You relax your jaw and pull him into your mouth.

His hand finds your hair.

You move down, slowly, relaxing your throat as his dick slides further into your mouth.

His hand fists in your hair.

You let him guide you, to a point - you flatly refuse to go fast. 

Other than that, he gets full control, sometimes forcing you to pay more attention to his head, sometimes pressing your nose to his pelvis.

He tries to pull you off of him before he comes.

You push down farther, hands holding his hips down so he won't break your nose.

You glance up at him.

He's staring down at you.

His eyes meet yours, and then roll back in his head as he presses his forearm against his mouth and arches his back, coming in your mouth.

When you've sucked him dry and he's started tugging at your hair, you pull off of him, kissing your way up his body as his breathing falls back to normal. 

He yawns before you can kiss him.

"Tired already?"

"Not my fault. I was tired before you came in, too."

You kiss his nose. "Go back to sleep. I'll see you in a few hours." You stand, remember that you were on your way to the bathroom, and open his door.

"Dirk -" 

The mattress creaks.

You turn just in time for John to smash into you, kissing you with all the force he can muster this early in the morning.

"I love you," he mutters.

"I thought I was the one getting emotional," You murmur.

"Dickface, I'm being serious."

You press your forehead against his, reveling in the feel of his skin against yours, the soft sound of his breath. "I know. I love you too."

You kiss him gently.

The door creaks.

"John, did - Bro - what -"

You look up and freeze.

Your first instinct is to push John away from you, to deny everything, but there's really no point to that, not now, not when Dave's walked in on you kissing, not now that he knows.

He's not wearing his shades.

His expression shows at least thirty different kinds of betrayal. 

John steps back, away from you. 

You stare at Dave, waiting.

He doesn't seem to have anything to say, speechless for once in his life. 

And then he does.

"You  _fucker_ -" he screams.

You hear Egbert's door slam open. "David, what is -" He halts behind Dave. Sees you and John, you in your boxers, John in his wrinkled, slightly crooked pajama pants. Puts it together with Dave's incomprehensible yelling. 

His expression turns into one of ungentlemanly anger.

"Perhaps it would be better if you stayed the rest of your time here in a hotel," He says icily, drawing Dave to the side so you have room to leave.

You walk out. Head into your room. Dress faster than you have in your life. 

When you leave, bag in hand, John is wearing a shirt and standing just inside the doorway of his bedroom as Dave nods. He turns away from Egbert and brushes past you without looking at you.

Egbert looks at you. "I think you should bring your brother with you."

"He had nothing to do with this, he had no idea -" 

"I know," Egbert interrupts. "I think it would be better for you to talk to him."

He's lying. 

You understand that much.

He's angry at you.  _Hatred_ might be a good way to put it - hatred at you, for having his son over so often, for coming halfway across the country into his house and taking advantage of his son in the room next to his, for everything you ever did for John that's now being recolored in terms of sex, and he's doing something about it. He won't let Dave stay here because being stuck in a small hotel room with him is the best way to force your guilt on you. 

You don't blame him. 

"I've called you a cab. It should be here shortly."

You suppose saying thank you wouldn't be appropriate in this situation. "I think it would be best if I wait outside."

"No -" John starts, but Egbert grabs his arm.

"I agree."

You head out the door.

You stand on the sidewalk. 

You want to go back inside.

You want to go in, tell Egbert it was your fault, that John had nothing to do with it, that he shouldn't be angry at John, because even if it isn't true, it might save John a bit of trouble. 

You feel empty.

Your sweatshirt isn't enough to protect you from the cold, not today, not when just a few minutes ago John's arms were wrapped around your neck and his body was warm against yours.

You should have told Dave sooner.

You should have done a lot of things. 

The door opens. 

"Dave -  _Dave_ -"

Good. John should try and fix his friendship. Dave should hate you, not John. 

God, you don't want Dave to hate you. 

The taxi approaches as Dave and John reach you, Dave not looking at either of you and John looking at both of you. 

You want to reassure him.

You want to tell him not to worry.

You can't.

The taxi parks in the driveway. Dave heads towards it, John by his side, talking more quickly than you've ever heard him talk in your life.

Egbert grabs you. "If you  _ever_ -"

A truck is coming down the street.

"Go near my son -"

The driver has a coffee in one hand, his eyes on the GPS sitting on his dash.

"I will personally -"

The GPS begins to slide forward.

"Find you and -"

He doesn't want to spill his coffee. He takes his eyes off the road.

You drop your bag.

The GPS falls.

You begin running. 

You can't see the driver anymore.

You can picture it, though.

The GPS falls. Not wanting it to hit the gear shift or the wheel, not wanting to spill his coffee, the driver makes a mistake, hits the wheel, turns it farther than he meant to.

Runs up onto the sidewalk on which John and Dave are walking.

Junior year of high school. Physics. Momentum equals mass times velocity. If an object with mass  _m_ and velocity  _v_ crashes into two objects with masses  _m1_ and  _m2_ and velocity  _v2_ , and the first object comes to a stop, what will the velocities of the other two objects be?

The student in you yells that there are no numbers, that you can't know for sure.

But you're not a student anymore. You're an adult. And you know the answer, because there's only one thing it can be, one thing it  _has_ to be: 

Enough.

You don't slow down as you hit John and Dave. 

You hope they go flying.

Neither of them can die, not John, not Da-

Something smashes into you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me.  
> Note the absence of the "major character death" tag  
> it's not there for a reason


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bro ain't dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Da-"

" _ve_!"

You hear hoarse yelling, beeping - there's something about that beep - it's too fast.

" _Dave_!"

Oh. The yelling is you.

"Bro?  _Bro_! Holy shit, Bro -" Dave appears above you, and you feel pressure on your arms that you connect with him - his hands, he's holding you down, he's strong and healthy enough to stand next to you and hold you down and he's  _alive_ -

Your left arm is trapped.

Your right arm is not, though, and you wrap it around him, pulling him to you, your little brother is alive and not dead and not crushed by a truck and his body isn't cold and stiff, it's warm, and he must be uncomfortable, standing and bending over at this angle for you to hug him, but he's not pulling away, he's letting you hug him, thank god, thank  _god_ -

There's the screech of sneakers against linoleum as three doctors and a nurse come running in, pulling Dave off of you - why are they doing that -

"He's awake, he's all right, holy  _shit_ he's awake -"

The doctors stop, stare at you. 

"Well,  _something_ made the heart monitors go off," the male says confusedly.

"It's going back down now, though, look at it," one of the women points out.

"How did he wake up in the first place?" The other woman asks, glancing at Dave.

"Wake up? What do you mean, wake up?" You ask.

The first woman grimaces. "Mr. Strider, you were brought in about a week and a half ago. We performed emergency surgery - one of your lungs was crushed, as were most of your ribs. Your left arm was broken in three different places, both of your legs were broken, and you had a very severe concussion. In other words, you were incredibly lucky - you weren't dead, and everything can be fixed, even if it will take quite some time. But you went into a coma after that. Actually, we told your brother here that his best option was to go back to school instead of waiting around for you, but he insisted on staying." She smiles at you. "I don't know what happens to people while they're in comas, but if there's a chance you were aware of anything, the fact that you're awake now is probably due to your brother. You should thank him." She frowns. "I'd still like to check something out, though..." 

The two other doctors leave, reassured that you're not dying. Your doctor and the nurse stay, checking charts and machines and muttering things you don't understand.

You look at Dave, and catch him rubbing his eyes - no, that's not what people do when they rub their eyes, that's what they do when they wipe away tears. 

You smile at him. "Hey, Davey. Been sitting at my bedside for a week and a half?"

He makes a face that you think is supposed to be a grin. "Yeah."

You note the ridge that goes down his cheek. "What's going on with your face?"

"Stitches. When you hit me, I kind of - flew, I guess, and the rest of me was protected by about fifteen layers of clothing, so I just got some bruising everywhere else, but my face was kinda bare, and my cheek got ripped open, and I had to get twenty-one stitches - what the fuck kind of facial expression is that, do you really feel guilty, why do you feel guilty, I'd be dead if you hadn't pushed me -"

"He's right, you know," the doctor says absently. "He and that other kid - John - they'd both probably be dead if you hadn't pushed them out of the way. They're both lighter and thinner, they'd have been thrown farther, and if it's a miracle that  _you_ survived, God himself would have had to come down and bring them back to life if they'd been hit. I can't find anything wrong with you right now - aside from the obvious - so if you'll hold on a second -" She peels the tape off one of the tubes in your arm and slowly pulls out the needle. "Sorry - that was the feeding tube - I'll get you on the feeding schedule - all right, I'll leave now."

"Thank you," You call after her as she leaves.

Dave sits down in the chair next to you, the chair that he must have occupied for the past week and a half. You watch him as he scoots to one side of the chair. "If I sit in the center, my ribs touch the armrest, and it hurts," he explains.

"Dave - I didn't get to say - I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I - I should have told you, I shouldn't have let it go that far -"

"It's all right."

"No, I was a shitty brother, I -"

"I've been talking to John a little. He was hospitalized for a day or two with a concussion, by the way - and he's on crutches, too, he's heavier than I am and he didn't - fly like I did, I guess, he was in the air and he wasn't far enough away, the truck hit his ankle and broke it and his shin in two different places - still better than if he'd hit the ground already, the truck would've crushed his whole foot - and he hasn't come up yet, but I've been texting him. Egbert's been up a couple times, though. Didn't say much."

John's alive too. On crutches, but alive. Dave and John are both alive and they'll be okay and they won't be permanently injured because of you, because you were stupid enough to walk into John's room, to not have told Dave before that, to have agreed to go to his house over thanksgiving break - so, so many stupid decisions, stupid decisions going back months that could have killed the two of them, and they were only saved because the same brain that made those stupid decisions made the correct connection between an improperly anchored GPS and where Dave and John were on the sidewalk -

"Stop thinking whatever you're thinking, you look guilty, you shouldn't be guilty, it's my fault for overreacting, if I hadn't overreacted Egbert never would have kicked you out and we wouldn't have been out there and you wouldn't have had to save us -"

"Dave - are you blaming  _yourself_?" You ask incredulously.

"Well, it's my fault, I mean, did it  _really_ warrant my reaction,  _really_ -"

"Yes, yes it did, you - don't blame yourself for anything, it was my fault, the whole situation, if I'd been a good person, a good brother, the whole thing would have stopped before it could go anywhere -"

"And then you saved my goddamn life, so -"

Egbert walks in. "Hello, David, it's -"

He stops dead. 

"Mr. Strider."

"Mr. Egbert."

"You're awake."

"Yes."

You watch him. He watches you. You've caught him off-guard, and not just because you're awake - he's seen your eyes before, but never looked at them, never had them leveled directly at him.

You've been told that it's an intense experience.

"When did you come out of your coma, if I may ask?"

"About five minutes ago."

He raises his eyebrows. "Have the doctors been in yet?"

"Yes."

"Ah."

He seems to be at a loss for words.

Dave clears his throat. "Uh, Bro, Eg - Mr. Egbert's been sitting in here with you sometimes, so I could take a break - take a walk, go outside, fun stuff like that - and he's - sort of been my transportation to and from the hotel where I'm staying. He, um, offered to let me stay at his house, but I - I don't know, I declined the offer, I didn't really - want to, I guess -"

"Thank you, then," You cut off Dave's babbling. "For taking care of Dave."

For the first time since he walked in, he looks as though he's remembered himself, straightening up and looking you in the eye. "I believe it is on me, Mr. Strider, to thank  _you_. I - I realize that I may have been rather harsh on you, and my actions put my son in danger. It is thanks to you that he is alive at all. Driving David back and forth between the hospital and the hotel was the least I could do."

Your mouth might be hanging open. 

Holy shit.

How is it even possible that he and Dave are blaming themselves?

"No, it was my fault, I - shouldn't have -"

"Mr. Strider. Dirk. Perhaps you would like to know how I discovered your name? As soon as John was able to move and knew that David was safe and you were in a coma, he asked to visit you. For David's sake, I have prevented this, but I have used John's - ah - extended vacation to get to know my son a little better, and I've learned quite a bit. I have also not forgotten about - shall we say - the fact that he is, in fact, his mother's son. I'm afraid that I placed all the blame on you without stopping to think about my son's personality. For that, I would like to extend my full apologies, and for John's life, I would like to thank you. Now - seeing that you are awake - David, am I correct in assuming that you will not be leaving your brother's side any time soon?"

Dave nods. "Thanks, though."

Egbert nods to Dave, nods to you, and leaves.

Impressive.

"Bro?" Dave asks, staring intently at his fingernails.

"Yeah?"

"Did you meet John over fall break?"

"No."

"When?"

"Parent's weekend."

He frowns. "Parent's weekend?"

"Yeah, he, um, threw a pie at my face."

Dave frowns and looks at you. "What? When? How the hell did that translate to a relationship of any kind whatsoever?"

"Remember how you ended up having a thing to do for three hours? But I'd already gotten there? Well, I took your advice and went to the coffee shop, and I'm sitting there with a coffee, and a fucking pie - I don't even remember what kind it was - hits me in the face, and this asshole comes running over with napkins, apologizing like he's actively tried to kill me -"

"I'm surprised you didn't kill him," Dave mutters.

"Well, I thought he'd tripped, I figured it was an accident - anyway, napkins weren't working, so I went to the bathroom and found out that they were closed - they were being cleaned. So he offered to bring me back to his room, said he had a sink in there. So I went, and, um, ah, things, escalated from there."

Dave shudders. "Yeah, no need to tell me all the gory details - wait. I had class for  _three hours_."

"Yeah?"

"You said you were 'taking a walk' when I called to say I'd gotten out of class."

"Mm. No, I was in John's room."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. So if you got to school before the three hours even started - let's say you didn't even walk into John's room until an hour after my class started. You were still there for  _two hours_." 

His face slowly contorts as he registers the horrifying implications.

"We talked, too," you defend yourself. "A lot, actually, way more than I usually do with one-night stands -"

"One-night stands?"

"Well, I didn't know who he was, all I knew was that his name was John, and we both kind of thought it was a one-time thing, but, well -"

"But, then I - oh, wait, hold on - is that why - that's right, it took him a year and a half to get in the car when you picked us up for fall break. I thought he was staring at your shades, but he'd recognized you, that's why he stopped."

"Yeah."

"So what, as soon as you were alone, you...?" He looks mildly nauseated. "Oh, god, every time I came out of the shower and he was in the garage with you -"

"No, no, no, I - actually, I flatly refused to go anywhere near him for at least half the break -"

"Why not?"

You stare at him. "Dave, what are you asking?"

He fiddles with his fingers again. "It's - foolish, really it's nothing -"

"Did you just say 'foolish' instead of 'stupid'? Kid, I know when you're getting worked up. Just spit it out, it ain't stupid."

He says something really quietly.

"I am actually gonna have to ask you to turn up the volume."

He flushes. "You - you didn't do it on purpose, right? To - just to spite me? Like, you didn't know he was my best friend, and then when you figured it out... you didn't... keep doing things because you knew he was my best friend, you tried to stop and couldn't, right? Like, you actually like him? You're not just being a dick or something, like, you weren't trying to teach me some weird lesson, and you're not going to ditch him if you can help it, because you actually like him, and your... relationship-thing developed even though you tried to stop it? I don't know, this isn't making sense, I don't know how to phrase it -"

"No, it makes sense. It wasn't to hurt you, I swear, we had no idea who each other was at parent's weekend, and we tried during fall break, but - you'd go to take a shower, and he'd get bored and end up talking to me, and - seriously, this is a kid who knows my nickname is 'The Smuppetteer' and is still willing to hang out with me, and - I mean, the whole week, we figured that would be it. I mean, if I ever went back to your school, I'd never have set foot outside the car, and he'd never have accepted another invitation back, we both thought that was it, neither of us wanted to hurt you -"

"But then he got sick," Dave supplies.

"But then he got sick. And I - I guess - I couldn't stand the thought of him stewing in his own fuckin' germs, coughing up a lung when there was no one there to help him. And that - that was kind of - it. We gave up. There was no real point in saying shit like 'we'll never see each other again' because he'd started hallucinating me - when I walked into his room, he thought I was a hallucination, called me Aradia until Aradia herself walked in - and I'd run over there at the drop of a hat when I found out he needed help, and people don't do that for just any random person. So we started skyping, but neither of us knew how to tell you, and we - let it go on too long. I'm sorry, Dave. I never meant to hurt you. John didn't, either. But we - went about things in the shittiest possible manner, and if either of us had thought about it for half a second we never would have -"

Dave throws himself across you, hugging you as tightly as he can without hurting you. You wrap your arm around him, carefully avoiding the place where he said his ribs were bruised, and press your face into his blonde hair. "You know I love you, right, kid? I'd do anything for you. I just - can't do this. I don't know why, but I can't. But I swear, I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to do this to you."

Dave pulls himself up and gives you a weak smile, wiping his eyes again. "I know." He pulls a phone out of your pocket - your phone. "I'm surprised John hasn't texted you. I mean, Egbert's gotta have told him by now, right?"

"He doesn't have my number."

Dave's head snaps up. "What?"

"We don't have each other's phone numbers."

Dave snickers. And then he's laughing, laughing at some joke you didn't get, doubled over and wheezing, grimacing as it hurts his ribs. "You - you've been dating for what, a month now? And neither of you thought to ask for the other's  _phone number_?"

"That - I don't know, it seemed too - relationship-y. I don't know. We never - put it that way. Like we were dating."

Dave sniggers. "Jesus Christ. The two of you should have a reality TV show."

You snort. "That would be awful, just - actually," you muse, "that would be a pretty good show. Me - with all of my jobs - dating him - the college student whose dad wears a suit and tie even on his days off. They could interview you. You could baffle them with your vocabulary."

Dave chortles. "'So, Mr. Strider, how did you make all your money?' 'I'm so glad you asked, I'm always looking for a way to expand my business. I hand-make and sell puppet sex toys -' cameras turn off, show gets canceled, fans who want to know more make such an uproar that someone else picks up the show. God, that would be great."

"Dave, are you sure you're okay with this? It's okay if you're not, and I'll - do something, I don't know, but I'd rather John be your friend than my boyfriend. So just say the word, and -"

"Bro. Shut. Up. I said I'm okay with it. You're my brother and he's my best friend, and it's not like you're getting married - right?"

You shake your head once before discovering that that makes your vision do weird things. "No. No. Jesus Christ no."

"Then it's fine."

* * *

Two days later, your head is well enough that you can sit up, and your face is finally at the same height as Dave's, who's reading you the thousands of emails from your customers - both from your smuppet website and your robotics websites - wishing you a quick recovery. Dave had posted on both websites the day after the surgeries, telling everyone that you were out for the count for an unknown period of time, and had posted again when you woke up. "So wait, what do you want me to tell this dude -"

What is that  _clicking_ , did someone really wear heels to the hospital? No, it doesn't sound like heels, it's - muffled. Not clicking. Thudding? Not loud enough to be thudding.

"I'm reducing the price. Half-off. I'm keeping the rest and I'll write him his program as soon as I can. Full apologies." You've discovered that texting one-handed with your non-dominant hand on a smartphone is nearly impossible.

The clicking is getting closer.

"Ok. This woman is asking about a -"

The curtain around your bed swings open. Egbert nods at you. "Mr. Strider. David."

You nod back. Dave gives him a one-fingered wave.

Egbert pushes the curtain a little farther and stands aside.

With the click of crutches against linoleum, John propels himself into your room, wearing an enormous grin and a vertical scar on the left side of his forehead. 

You can't help it. 

You grin when you see him.

Dave gets up. 

"Hey, Dave," John says apprehensively. 

"Hey, John. Listen, I - I'm okay with this. We're still friends, man." 

John grins again and nearly falls, trying to maneuver himself around your bed towards Dave. Dave moves towards John to help him, and then they're hugging, and they're friends, you haven't ruined everything, everything is all right, Dave and John are still friends and Dave doesn't hate you and you get to keep John.

"David, I assume you need a break? If you would like to join me, I'm on my way downstairs for lunch."

Dave nods. "Sounds good to me."

Egbert holds the curtain aside so Dave can walk out, and closes them behind him. 

John looks at the chair, and then at your bed. "Move over."

"You're talking to an injured person, here."

"So are you. Scooch."

So you shift yourself over as best you can, and John nearly sits on your legs as he struggles to sit down without dropping his crutches or putting weight on his bad leg. 

"You look like shit."

"I'm not the one with stitches in my face."

"I'm not the one in a hospital gown."

You grimace. "Don't remind me."

John grins mischievously. " _I_ only had to wear the thing for a few days."

"I asked them if I could at least wear one of my own shirts or something, but they're still checking my ribs too often, so they need access."

The grin slides off John's face. "Ok, but in all seriousness, thanks. They said I'd be dead if it weren't for you." He shivers involuntarily. "God, I woke up in the hospital, and the last thing I remembered was something smashing into me, and I asked what happened, and they told me and I - I thought  _you_ were dead for a moment, I mean, you got hit by a fucking truck, I - kinda stopped breathing - if you died, I'd have -" his breath hitches and his voice cracks as he tries not to cry. "I don't even know, I just - jesus, Dirk, don't you  _ever_ do that again, if you die I'll - I'll -"

You wrap your good arm around him and he wraps his arms around you and buries his face in your neck. 

"The thing is," he says, his voice muffled against your skin, "I don't think I can live without you anymore."

You rub his back. "It's okay. I don't think I could live without you, either."

He sniffles and picks his head up. "Really?"

You smile. "Yeah. This is a two-way thing, you know that, right?"

He bites his lip.

You realize something.

He doesn't know that.

He doesn't know how much you love him.

He knows you like him, but that's it.

He doesn't know that you need him just as much as he needs you.

You think back on all the times John has come to you instead of the other way around, all the times he's said he needed you or loved you, all the times he made sure you knew he was being serious when he said it, and you realize something else: you've only said you loved him once, and it was right after you blew him. 

He really doesn't know.

You press your forehead against his. "John, I love you," you say quietly. "Just as much as you love me. I can't live without you, and I don't want to, and if Dave and your dad don't have a problem with it, I don't plan on ever living without you. I'm yours, and you've got me for as long as you want me."

John smiles, happy laughter bubbling out of his mouth, and he kisses you gently, so gently your heart monitor doesn't even register a change, and you can feel his smile against your lips, and you can't help but smile in return.

He kisses you again, tracing the curve of your lips, and you let him in, and there it is, his taste, and you're still alive to taste it and he's still alive to kiss you and you don't have to hide anything anymore, everything's going to be okay.

Your heart monitor registers a slight change of pace. 

You pull away. "Don't want the doctor to have to come and check on me."

He contents himself with resting his forehead on yours, smiling a little when you move your hand from the back of his neck to cup his cheek. 

He covers your hand with his, his blue eyes closing. 

"Dirk?"

"Mm?"

"You're probably going to end up on crutches, right?"

"Probably, why?"

"Can we have races to see who's the fastest on them?"

You close your eyes. "I'm so glad you're my boyfriend."

You open your eyes to see him grinning at you.

"I'm your boyfriend?"

"Shit, yes. And hell fuckin' yes we can have crutch races."

He wraps his arms around your neck and sighs.

"I'm so glad I threw that pie at your face."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks!  
> Seriously though. Thank you for all the comments and the kudos, and thanks to those of you who reblog my tumblr posts when I post about updating this - I read your comments and tags and they make my day, every time.  
> Thanks especially to those of you who are reading this, since it means you came back, even after last chapter.  
> I hope you guys enjoyed it!


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